Attitudes Towards Deprescribing Medications in Cancer Patients and Impact of Educational Intervention by a Clinical Pharmacist

Not Applicable

Not yet recruiting

• Conditions: Cancer Patients in Palliative Care with Chronic Use of Non-oncologic Medications

• Registration Number: NCT06771999
• Lead Sponsor: Iuliu Hatieganu University of Medicine and Pharmacy

Brief Summary

Your participation in this study consists in responding to some questions from two questionnaires in Romanian about how you feel about deprescribing, your treatment and how you understand medical information. After that, you'll receive a brochure and watch a video with some basic information about medications and your involvement in treatment decisions and in the next visit for your cancer treatment you will be asked to answer questions from one of the initial questionnaire.

Detailed Description

Cancer patients are susceptible to using a lot of medications, with an increased risk of drug-related problems that could lead to adverse reactions from oncological drugs, hospital admissions, deteriorated performance status and increased mortality. In time, some medications may no longer be efficient, may have adverse reactions or may lose their indication and need to be stopped or replaced. This process is named deprescribing and it's supervised by a health care professional. Deprescribing can't be done without the implication of the patients, that's why it's important to investigate cancer patient's attitudes towards deprescribing non-oncologic medications in Romanian patients using a validated questionnaire (rPATD). Recent studies from Romania showed a possible lack of health care literacy that could affect patients involvement in treatment decision. In this study, we will investigate health care literacy using a validated questionnaire in Romanian (HLS-EU-Q16). In this study we will also investigate if an educational intervention (targeting patients involvement in treatment decision and mandatory, minimal information about efficacy of a treatment and its adverse reactions) conducted by a clinical pharmacist using a brochure and a video will improve their engagement and knowledge about drugs. Impact of educational intervention will be investigated by applying the rPATD questionnaire before and after the intervention.

Study Timeline

• Status Verified: 2025-01
• Study First Submitted: 2025-01-07
• Study First Submitted QC: 2025-01-07
• Last Update Submitted: 2025-01-07
• Study Start: 2025-01-13
• Study First Posted: 2025-01-13
• Last Update Posted: 2025-01-13
• Primary Completion: 2026-01-30
• Study Completion: 2026-04-30

Recruitment & Eligibility

• Status: NOT_YET_RECRUITING
• Sex: All
• Target Recruitment: 120

Inclusion Criteria

• cancer patients in palliative treatment
• ECOG 1-2

Exclusion Criteria

• cancer patients in curative treatment
• ECOG 3-4
• cognitive impairment

Study & Design

• Study Type: INTERVENTIONAL
• Study Design: SINGLE_GROUP

Primary Outcome Measures

Name	Time	Method
Impact of educational intervention performed by clinical pharmacist	from enrollment to the next cycle of oncological treatment (14, 21 or 28 days days)	Participants will be asked to complete the same questionnaire before and after an educational intervention in order to assess if this kind of educational intervention is suitable for Romanian participants. Based on answers given to the same questions before and after the intervention, we can see if and what is changed in the perception of participants.

Secondary Outcome Measures

Name	Time	Method
Attitudes towards deprescribing medications in cancer patients in palliative treatment	from enrollment to the next cycle of oncological treatment (14, 21 or 28 days days) when they answer the second time	Using the rPATD questionnaire (revised Patients Attitudes Towards Deprescribing ), we assess if Romanian cancer patients are willing to have their medication deprescribed
The level of health literacy	at enrollment	Using the questionnaire HLS-EU-Q16 we can asses the level of health literacy of participants

Trial Locations

Locations (1)

Constantin Opris Emergency County Hospital; 🇷🇴 Baia Mare, Maramures, Romania