Prostate Cancer Care Communication (PCCC): Impact of Support Person Presence on Communication During Medical Appointments.

Purpose
This study seeks to better understand communication between patients, their support people, and their oncologist/healthcare providers during prostate cancer treatment appointments. Specifically, this project focuses on how support persons presence in prostate cancer appointments facilitates and/or inhibits communication between patients and providers, and in turn affects communication, mental health (symptoms of depression and anxiety), and quality of life outcomes. This proposal applies relationship and disclosure theoretical frameworks to explore how patients manage information sharing during medical oncology visits. This project is designed to collect data for a subsequent NCI grant proposal to develop a multi-level intervention to facilitate benefits (and limit drawbacks) of support people accompanying patients to oncology visits. We will gather data through surveys of patients with prostate cancer (and some support people) regarding their sharing/withholding patterns with providers and spouses during their treatment visits.

Objectives
The long-term goal of this research is to develop a brief multi-level intervention to assist patients, support people, and healthcare providers navigating the complexities of these communication interactions during prostate cancer treatment. This project explores how patients share information with their healthcare provider when accompanied by a support person and how patients manage their sharing with their healthcare providers and companions (and vice versa) when attending these medical oncology visits. The project is designed to provide preliminary evidence for a subsequent NCI grant proposal to develop a multi-level intervention.

Hypotheses / Research Question(s)
Aim 1: Examine prostate cancer patients sharing and withholding of cancer-related symptoms with their healthcare practitioners during medical oncology visits when their support person is present.
Hypothesis 1: Prostate cancer patients have different patterns of sharing/withholding to healthcare providers depending on who attends the medical visit (spouses versus other roles).
Research question 1: How do prostate cancer patients and their support people differ in communication patterns during the medical visits?
Aim 2: Investigate how prostate cancer patients sharing and withholding of cancer-related symptoms with their healthcare practitioners during medical oncology visits is associated with quality of life, including symptoms of depression and anxiety.
Hypothesis 2: Prostate cancer patients with different patterns of sharing/withholding to healthcare providers will also have different quality of life outcomes.
Aim 3: Explore how communication patterns differ based on dominant language preferences and across underrepresented racial/ethnic groups across the Cancer Institute of New Jersey Catchment area.
Research question 2: Do communication patterns differ across non-Hispanic white (English speaking), Hispanic (Spanish speaking), and southeast Asian (Gujarati speaking) men with prostate cancer?

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