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Purpose: Efficient physician communication with adolescent cancer survivors (ACS) during follow-up consultations is important to enable survivors to take responsibility for their health. The present study had two aims: to develop a communication tool to enhance structured consultations and improve clinician communication in follow-up consultations, and to pilot-test the tool in physicians' consultations with ACS. Methods: Clinicians and communication experts collaborated closely to develop the 7 Memory Hooks (7MH) communication tool and a corresponding coding scheme for scoring communication behavior in consultations. Thirty-seven follow-up consultations between ACS and physicians were video-recorded (22 before intervention and 15 after intervention). The intervention consisted of a didactic lecture, a group workshop, and individual coaching to provide feedback to physicians on the communication skills observed in the pre-intervention videos. We then compared physicians' communication behavior both before and after intervention. Results: Fourteen physicians participated in the 7MH training. The mean total score on the 7MH scheme was significantly higher post-intervention compared with pre-intervention (p = 0.001). Six behaviors changed significantly after the intervention. At a group level, physicians were more likely to be alone with the adolescent (p = 0.004) and to prepare the patient for transition to adult heath care (p = 0.040). They asked more often about the patients' expectations (p = 0.007) and resources ((p = 0.019). And they acknowledged patients' concerns more often (p = 0.016) but talked significantly less about physical activity (p = 0.012). Conclusion: A physician communication tool, designed bottom-up and developed in collaboration with the clinic, shows promising effects on physicians' communication behavior at follow-up consultations with ACS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: This study aimed to examine how emotional cues/concerns are expressed and responded to in medical consultations with adolescent and young adults (AYA), an understudied patient group, at the time of cancer diagnosis.Methods: Nine consultations in which AYA patients aged 12-25 years were informed about their cancer diagnosis and treatment plans were audio recorded. Expressions of emotional cues/concerns and physicians' responses were identified and coded using The Verona Coding Definitions of Emotional Sequences (VR-CoDES).Results: A total of 135 emotional cues/concerns (range: 2-26, median: 13) were identified. Cues or concerns that were expressed by patients and relatives following questions from physicians were more often explicit than patient-initiated cues/concerns. Questions about medical and practical issues could often be understood as ways of expressing emotional cues. When patients or relatives expressed less explicit verbal cues about underlying concerns, physicians often responded by presenting medical information without commenting on the emotional aspect indicated by the cue.Conclusion: The communication was dominated by information-giving, but the questions from patients and relatives and their responses to the information often had emotional connotations.Practice Implications: Patients' requests for information may include an emotional aspect. These preliminary findings should be tested in a larger sample. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a study which examined whether possible late effects were discussed with adolescent and young adult (AYA)-aged survivors of pediatric cancer and whether information on late effects were provided by pediatric oncologists (PO) in the U.S. during routine follow-up consultations.

Objectives: To systematize the scientific knowledge of empirically tested strategies for verbally providing medical information in patient-physician consultations.Methods: A scoping review searching for terms related to physician, information, oral communication, and controlled study. Four pairs of reviewers screened articles. For each selected study, we assessed the quality and summarized aspects on participants, study, intervention, and outcomes. Information provision strategies were inductively classified by types and main categories.Results: After screening 9422 articles, 39 were included. The methodological quality was moderate. We identified four differently used categories of strategies for providing information: cognitive aid (n = 13), persuasive (n = 8), relationship- (n = 3), and objectivity-oriented strategies (n = 4); plus, one "mixed" category (n = 11). Strategies were rarely theoretically derived.Conclusions: Current research of tested strategies for verbally providing medical information is marked by great heterogeneity in methods and outcomes, and lack of theory-driven approaches. The list of strategies could be used to analyse real life communication.Practice Implications: Findings may aid the harmonization of future efforts to develop empirically-based information provision strategies to be used in clinical and teaching settings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]