How can advance care planning support hope in patients with advanced cancer and their families : a qualitative study as part of the international ACTION trial

Kodba Čeh, Hana (author)

Objective: Clinicians' fears of taking away patients' hope is one of the barriers to advance care planning (ACP). Research on how ACP supports hope is scarce. We have taken up the challenge to specify ways in which ACP conversations may potentially support hope. Methods: In an international qualitative study, we explored ACP experiences of patients with advanced cancer and their personal representatives (PRs) within the cluster-randomised control ACTION trial. Using deductive analysis of data obtained in interviews following the ACP conversations, this substudy reports on a theme of hope. A latent thematic analysis was performed on segments of text relevant to answer the research question. Results: Twenty patients with advanced cancer and 17 PRs from Italy, the Netherlands, Slovenia, and the United Kingdom were participating in post-ACP interviews. Three themes reflecting elements that provide grounds for hope were constructed. ACP potentially supports hope by being (I) a meaningful activity that embraces uncertainties and difficulties; (II) an action towards an aware and empowered position; (III) an act of mutual care anchored in commitments. Conclusion: Our findings on various potentially hope supporting elements of ACP conversations provide a constructive way of thinking about hope in relation to ACP that could inform practice.

• Language: English
• Keywords: ACTION study, cancer, end of life, dying persons, advance care planning, hope, international study, qualitative research, psycho-oncology, medical oncology
• Work type: Article
• Typology: 1.01 - Original Scientific Article
• Organization: FF - Faculty of Arts
• Publication status: Published
• Publication version: Version of Record
• Year: 2022
• Number of pages: 8 str.
• Numbering: Vol. 31, iss. 6, art. e13719
• PID: 20.500.12556/RUL-144339
• UDC: 159.96
• ISSN on article: 1365-2354
• DOI: 10.1111/ecc.13719
• COBISS.SI-ID: 124962563
• Publication date in RUL: 15.02.2023

Record is a part of a journal

• Title: European journal of cancer care
• Shortened title: Eur. j. cancer care
• Publisher: Wiley
• ISSN: 1365-2354
• COBISS.SI-ID: 512665625

Licences

• License: CC BY-NC-ND 4.0, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International
• Link: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
• Description: The most restrictive Creative Commons license. This only allows people to download and share the work for no commercial gain and for no other purposes.

Secondary language

• Language: Slovenian
• Keywords: raziskava ACTION, rak, zadnji dnevi življenja, umirajoči, vnaprejšnje načrtovanje oskrbe, psihoonkologija, medicinska onkologija

Projects

• Funder: EC - European Commission
• Funding programme: FP7
• Project number: 602541
• Name: Advance Care Planning; an Innovative Palliative Care Intervention to Improve Quality of Life in Cancer Patients - a Multi-Centre Cluster Randomized Clinical Trial
• Acronym: ACTION