Abstract 1906
Background
As the demand for cancer patient education has increased lately, the administrative body of the universal health insurance in South Korea has decided to include the cost for cancer patient education to its insurance coverage. Dongnam Institute of Radiological Medical Sciences (DIRAMS) in Busan, South Korea, created its cancer patient education program in 2016 and has educated cancer patients about their treatments according to the program since then. This paper will discuss the study conducted at the hospital in order to estimate the level of satisfaction among the patients who participated in the education program.
Methods
The program consists of an 80-minute long education session led by a doctor, a nurse, and a clinical dietitian before each cancer patient receives his or her chemotherapy, radiation therapy, or a surgery. questionnaire survey was conducted on patients who participated in the education program from July 2016 to March 2017.
Results
Among the patients who participated in the survey, the number of patients who had chemotherapy education is 663. Stomach cancer was the most prevalent cancer type in this group, followed by cholangiocarcinoma. 75.3% of the patients in this group received palliative chemotherapy, and the rest received adjuvant chemotherapy. The satisfaction level of the chemotherapy education was 4.98 on a five-point Likert scale. The number of patients who had the radiotherapy education was 195. Breast cancer represents the largest portion in this group. The satisfaction level of the radiotherapy education was 4.3. The number of patients who received the surgery education was 70. The satisfaction level of the surgery education was 4.6.
Conclusions
The total 928 patients who participated in the education program rate their level of satisfaction as 4.8 in average on a scale of 1 to 5. This high rating can be seen as an indication of high satisfaction in the quality of the education about their treatments. To enhance the education program further, it will be worthwhile to investigate improvements in each part of the program and in the perspective of patients. Subsequently, it is also worthwhile to investigate how the education program affects cancer patients.
Clinical trial identification
Legal entity responsible for the study
Ha Young Lee
Funding
None
Disclosure
All authors have declared no conflicts of interest.