Delayed Presentation in Cancer (DEPRICA)

The written questionnaire will be provided to participants that captures the timeline of events from symptom presentation till diagnosis, the patient’s and caregivers perception and knowledge of cancer, patient’s concerns towards treatment, and personal characteristics including psychological beliefs, social behaviour and personality type. The questionnaire has been validated by a group of expert physicians comprising of oncologists, public health and palliative medicine specialists. After starting accrual, the questionnaire will be validated on the first twenty patients and necessary modifications will be done in the questionnaire.

Patients and caregivers who consent to participate will be provided the questionnaire form and asked to tick/fill the appropriate responses. Those who cannot read/write or requiring assistance will be interviewed and the responses will be entered by the investigators in questionnaire form.

Certain baseline factors including (co-morbidity, family history, addiction history, primary disease site) will be recorded from electronic database to reduce the time of questionnaire.

The baseline patient characteristics will be correlated with the delays at various steps.