Abstract
39 Background: Prostate cancer is the second leading cause of cancer death among U.S. men. While self-reported quality of life has been shown to be prognostic of survival, there has been limited exploration of whether a patient’s assessment of the overall quality-of-care received might influence survival in prostate cancer. We evaluated the relationship between patient-reported experience with service quality and overall survival in prostate cancer. Methods: 832 returning prostate cancer patients treated at Cancer Treatment Centers of America between July 2007 and December 2010. Overall patient experience (“considering everything, how satisfied are you with your overall experience?”) was measured on a 7-point Likert scale ranging from “completely dissatisfied” to “completely satisfied”. It was dichotomized into 2 categories: top box response (7) versus all others (1-6). Cox regression was used to evaluate the association between patient experience and survival. Results: 560 patients were newly diagnosed while 272 had been previously treated. Majority of patients (n=570, 68.5%) had stage II disease at diagnosis. The mean age was 63.6 years. By the time of this analysis, 93 (11.2%) patients had expired. 710 (85.3%) patients were “completely satisfied” with the service quality they received while 122 (14.7%) patients were not. Median overall survival was 47.9 months. On univariate Cox regression analysis, “completely satisfied” patients had a significantly lower risk of mortality compared to those not “completely satisfied” (HR=0.48; 95% CI: 0.30-0.78; p=0.003). On multivariate Cox regression analysis controlling for stage at diagnosis, treatment history and age, “completely satisfied” patients demonstrated significantly lower mortality (HR=0.50; 95% CI: 0.29-0.87; p=0.01) compared to those not “completely satisfied”. Conclusions: Patient experience with service quality was an independent predictor of survival in prostate cancer. Based on this provocative observation, it is reasonable to suggest that further exploration of a possible meaningful relationship between patient perceptions of the care they have received and outcome in prostate cancer is indicated.
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