Department of Medicine, Indiana University School of Medicine, 340 West 10th Street, #6200, Indianapolis, IN, 46202, USA.
Division of General Internal Medicine, Section of Palliative Care and Medical Ethics, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, 15260, USA.
Support Care Cancer. 2018 Mar;26(3):1005-1011. doi: 10.1007/s00520-017-3922-2. Epub 2017 Oct 9.
Professional guidelines recommend that palliative care begin early in advanced cancer management, yet integration of palliative and cancer care remains suboptimal. Cancer centers may miss opportunities to provide palliative care information online. In this study, we described the palliative care content on cancer center websites.
We conducted a systematic content analysis of 62 National Cancer Institute- (NCI) designated cancer center websites. We assessed the content of center homepages and analyzed search results using the terms palliative care, supportive care, and hospice. For palliative and supportive care webpages, we assessed services offered and language used to describe care. Two researchers analyzed all websites using a standardized coding manual. Kappa values ranged from 0.78 to 1.
NCI-designated cancer center homepages presented information about cancer-directed therapy (61%) more frequently than palliative care (5%). Ten percent of cancer centers had no webpage with palliative care information for patients. Among centers with information for patients, the majority (96%) defined palliative or supportive care, but 30% did not discuss delivery of palliative care alongside curative treatment, and 14% did not mention provision of care early in the disease process.
Cancer center homepages rarely mention palliative care services. While the majority of centers have webpages with palliative care content, they sometimes omit information about early use of care. Improving accessibility of palliative care information and increasing emphasis on early provision of services may improve integration of palliative and cancer care.
专业指南建议在晚期癌症管理中尽早提供姑息治疗，但姑息治疗与癌症治疗的整合仍不尽如人意。癌症中心可能会错过在线提供姑息治疗信息的机会。在这项研究中，我们描述了癌症中心网站上的姑息治疗内容。
我们对 62 个美国国立癌症研究所（NCI）指定的癌症中心网站进行了系统的内容分析。我们评估了中心主页的内容，并使用“姑息治疗”、“支持性治疗”和“临终关怀”等术语分析了搜索结果。对于姑息治疗和支持性治疗网页，我们评估了所提供的服务以及用于描述护理的语言。两名研究人员使用标准化编码手册分析了所有网站。Kappa 值范围为 0.78 至 1。
NCI 指定的癌症中心主页更频繁地提供有关癌症定向治疗（61%）的信息，而不是姑息治疗（5%）。有 10%的癌症中心没有为患者提供姑息治疗信息的网页。在有患者信息的中心中，大多数（96%）定义了姑息或支持性治疗，但 30%的中心没有讨论姑息治疗与根治性治疗同时进行，14%的中心没有提到在疾病早期提供护理。
癌症中心主页很少提及姑息治疗服务。虽然大多数中心都有姑息治疗内容的网页，但有时会省略有关早期使用护理的信息。提高姑息治疗信息的可及性并强调早期提供服务可能会改善姑息治疗与癌症治疗的整合。
