Development of a structured questionnaire to assess cancer patients’ individual needs in general practice. A qualitative study

Background

Present studies report a vast number of unmet rehabilitation needs for cancer patients and a lack of professional focus irrespective of the type of cancer, prognosis, treatment, and clinical setting. Therefore, interventions targeting individual needs assessments using patient-reported outcome measures are recommended.

Aim

This paper explores the perceived value of a primarily author-developed questionnaire that assesses the needs experienced by cancer patients and general practitioners in their interaction in general practice.

Methods

We conducted nine semi-structured qualitative interviews with nine general practitioners and nine cancer patients to evaluate their assessment of our 33-item questionnaire.

Results

The general practitioners and patients demonstrate similarities but differences in their perception of the questionnaire’s value. The general practitioners were anxious about the questionnaire's comprehensiveness, which could indicate to the patients that they should solve all their problems related to the aftermaths of their illness. This is why the alignment of expectations was essential to the general practitioners. The comprehensiveness was, however, also regarded as instructive to the general practitioners, given that they would get more knowledge about the patient’s conditions and problems. The patients saw the questionnaire as a helpful tool that could aid them in their illness, by targeting highly relevant areas that were not always addressed by their general practitioner. The comprehensiveness was thus regarded as helpful. They hoped the general practitioners would allocate enough time to go through all their needs, provided the general practitioners received the filled-in questionnaire before the consultations.

Conclusion

The GPs and patients favored the comprehensiveness of an author-developed structured questionnaire. Both groups agreed that it addressed all issues relevant to the patients during their illness. Although the GPs stressed that expectations should be aligned before introducing the questionnaire to the patients at consultations.