Cancer patients’ use of supportive care services and cancer center services satisfaction

Abstract

20641 Background: Cancer patients undergoing active treatment often need social worker, nutrition, and/or pain management services. Patient satisfaction is a service quality indicator. Few data exist concerning patients’ utilization of social worker, nutrition, and pain management services and levels of satisfaction with cancer center services. Methods: Analysis of 17,077 satisfaction surveys from Aptium Oncology (AO)-managed cancer centers. Selected items from the standard Press-Ganey (PG) Outpatient Oncology Survey were examined. PG mailed and received surveys directly from respondents. Respondents were grouped according to use of social worker, nutrition, and pain services. 10,291 patients used none of these, while 4,018 used 1 and 2,242 used 2, and 526 all three. 9 survey items were analyzed addressing interpersonal aspects of care, billing services, and global satisfaction. A multivariate analysis of covariance (with patient age recoded into larger categories as the covariate) showed a significant effect of the use of support services; t-tests for each different type of support service (pain management, nutritional support, and social work) were then performed for each of the 9 patient satisfaction items. Results: For all items, mean scores increased modestly but significantly in a step-wise fashion with increased self-reported utilization of 1, 2, or 3 services as compared to the “zero services” group. The “3 services group” mean item scores were 4–5 points higher than the zero services group mean scores for all 9 items. These differences remained when patient age range category, gender, and disease status (new vs. recurrent disease) were entered into the multivariate analysis. Conclusions: Self-reported utilization of an increasing number of categories of social worker, nutrition, and pain management services is associated with statistically significant and meaningfully increased levels of patient satisfaction with a broad range of hospital ambulatory cancer center services. Author Disclosure Employment or Leadership Consultant or Advisory Role Stock Ownership Honoraria Research Expert Testimony Other Remuneration Aptium Oncology, Press Ganey Associates, Inc.