Information for patients with early-stage prostate cancer: a comparison of professionals' attitudes in Canada and Italy.

PURPOSE

To compare information priorities of Canadian to those of Italian health-care professionals in the context of early-stage prostate cancer.

METHOD

Oncologists (radiation and medical), nurses, and radiation-therapy technologists in each country were surveyed. Respondents rated the importance of addressing each of 78 questions with a case-scenario patient using either three (Italian survey) or four (Canadian survey) categories; the most important category was defined as "essential" in both countries. At least 67% identical responses on a specific question was considered "agreement."

RESULTS

Within each country, questions rated essential by most group members were similar across professions (all pairwise group correlations r>or=0.77, p<0.01); there was much less agreement within each profession between the countries (all pairwise comparisons of the amount of accounted-for variance F(max) >or=1.59, p<0.05). Amongst oncologists, Canadians agreed that 11 questions were essential versus two by the Italians; the Canadians disagreed on the essential nature of 29 questions versus nine by the Italians. More importantly, there was large variation within each group in both countries: individual Canadian oncologists identified from five to 69 questions essential and Italians from zero to 68; each of 75 questions was considered essential by some Canadian oncologists and each of all 78 by some Italians. Similar patterns were evident in the other professions.

CONCLUSIONS

Within each profession, the Italians agreed that fewer questions were essential to address and disagreed on the essential nature of fewer questions than their Canadian counterparts. There was, however, marked individual variation in priorities within each profession in each country. Thus, information provided to individual patients in both countries likely differs as a function of the particular professionals seen, and seeing two professionals (from the same or different professions) likely results in confusion for patients.