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ContextPatients with advanced cancer often involve family caregivers in health-related decision-making from diagnosis to end-of-life; however, few interventions have been developed to enhance caregiver decision support skills.ObjectivesAssess the feasibility, acceptability, and potential efficacy of individual intervention components of CASCADE (CAre Supporters Coached to be Adept DEcision Partners), an early telehealth, palliative care coach-led decision support training intervention for caregivers.MethodsPilot factorial trial using the multiphase optimization strategy (October 2019-October 2020). Family caregivers and their care recipients with newly-diagnosed advanced cancer (n = 46 dyads) were randomized to1 of 8 experimental conditions that included a combination of one of the following three CASCADE components: 1) effective decision support psychoeducation; 2) decision support communication training; and 3) Ottawa Decision Guide training. Feasibility was assessed by completion of sessions and questionnaires (predefined as ≥80%). Acceptability was determined through postintervention interviews and participants' ratings of their likelihood to recommend. Measures of effective decision support and caregiver and patient distress were collected at Twelve and Twenty four weeks.ResultsCaregiver participants completed 78% of intervention sessions and 81% of questionnaires; patients completed 80% of questionnaires. Across conditions, average caregiver ratings for recommending the program to others was 9.9 on a scale from 1-Not at all likely to 10-Extremely likely. Individual CASCADE components were observed to have potential benefit for effective decision support and caregiver distress.ConclusionWe successfully piloted a factorial trial design to examine components of a novel intervention to enhance the decision support skills of advanced cancer family caregivers. A fully-powered factorial trial is warranted.Key messageWe pilot tested components of CASCADE, an early palliative care decision support training intervention for family caregivers of patients with advanced cancer. CASCADE components were acceptable and the trial design feasible, providing promising future directions for palliative care intervention development and testing. Pilot results will inform a fully-powered trial.

Recent systematic reviews and meta-analyses have reported positive benefit of multicomponent "bundled" palliative care interventions for patients and family caregivers while highlighting limitations in determining key elements and mechanisms of improvement. Traditional research approaches, such as the randomized controlled trial (RCT), typically treat interventions as "bundled" treatment packages, making it difficult to assess definitively which aspects of an intervention can be reduced or replaced or whether there are synergistic or antagonistic interactions between intervention components. Progressing toward palliative care interventions that are effective, efficient, and scalable will require new strategies and novel approaches. One such approach is the Multiphase Optimization Strategy (MOST), a framework informed by engineering principles, that uses a systematic process to empirically identify an intervention comprised of components that positively contribute to desired outcomes under real-life constraints. This article provides a brief overview and application of MOST and factorial trial design in palliative care research, including our insights from conducting a pilot factorial trial of an early palliative care intervention to enhance the decision support skills of advanced cancer family caregivers (Project CASCADE).

Background Objective Design Setting Participants Results Conclusions Implications Identifying priority challenges of older adults with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is critical to designing interventions aimed at improving their well‐being and independence.To prioritize challenges of older adults with COPD and those who care for them to guide refinement of a telephonic nurse coach intervention for patients with COPD and their family caregivers (EPIC: Empowering People to Independence in COPD).Multiphase study guided by Baltes Theory of Successful Aging and the 5Ms Framework: Phase 1: Nominal group technique (NGT), a structured process of prioritizing responses to a question through group consensus. Phase 2: Rapid qualitative analysis. Phase 3: Intervention mapping and refinement.Ambulatory, virtual.Older adults with COPD, family caregivers, clinic staff (nurses, respiratory therapists), clinicians (physicians, nurse practitioners), and health system leaders.NGT sessions were conducted by constituency group with 37 participants (n = 7 patients, n = 6 family caregivers, n = 8 clinic staff, n = 9 clinicians, n = 7 health system leaders) (Phase 1). Participants generated 92 statements across five themes (Phase 2): (1) “Barriers to care”, (2) “Family caregiver needs”, (3) “Functional status and mobility issues”, (4) “Illness understanding”, and (5) “COPD care complexities”. Supplemental oxygen challenges emerged as a critical problem, and prioritized challenges differed by group. Patients and clinic staff prioritized “Functional status and mobility issues”, family caregivers prioritized “Family caregiver needs”, and clinicians and health system leaders prioritized “COPD care complexities”. Intervention mapping (Phase 3) guided EPIC refinement focused on meeting patient priorities of independence and mobility but accounting for all priorities.Diverse constituency groups identified priority challenges for older adults with COPD. Functional status and mobility issues, particularly related to supplemental oxygen, emerged as patient prioritized challenges.Patient‐centered interventions for older adults with COPD must account for their prioritized functional and supplemental oxygen needs and explore diverse constituent perspectives to facilitate intervention enrichment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]