A Randomized Controlled Trial to Promote Physician-Patient Discussion of Prostate Cancer Screening

September 13, 2005 updated by: Emory University

Prostate cancer is the most common type of cancer among men. It is also the second leading cause of cancer-related death among men. Two screening tests are available to try to detect prostate cancer early - the digital rectal examination (DRE) and the prostate specific antigen (PSA) blood test. Unfortunately, physicians aren't sure whether or not these two screening tests help save lives, and there's a lot of controversy about how to use them. Recently, a major government committee (the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force) recommended that physicians discuss the risks and potential benefits of prostate cancer screening with their patients, and allow patients to make their own decision.

Because of the controversies, many physicians currently don't discuss prostate cancer with their patients. The problem is that it takes time and effort to have these discussions, and the information is complicated. A lot of patients have trouble understanding it, especially if they have a limited educational background or trouble reading. When patients have difficulty obtaining, understanding, and acting on basic health information, we say that they have "low health literacy." Other researchers have shown that patients with low health literacy don't know as much about cancer screening and are less likely to get screened for various cancers. They also tend to be timid about discussing things with their doctor, and often go along with what the doctor says, rather than taking an active role in the decision making.

In 2003, under IRB approval, we conducted a study with 2 goals: 1) to encourage patients to talk to their doctor about prostate cancer screening, and 2) to learn more about the impact of low health literacy on these conversations. To promote conversation, we used two handouts, given to patients in the waiting room before they saw the doctor. The first was a patient education handout about prostate cancer screening, written in very simple terms with useful illustrations. The second was a handout that simply encouraged patients to talk to their doctor about prostate cancer. Patients got one of the two handouts, or a nutritional handout that served as a control. After they saw their doctor, a research assistant briefly interviewed the patient to find out whether or not prostate cancer screening was discussed. We also measured the patients' health literacy skills, and asked a few other questions about their decision to get screened for prostate cancer.

Study Overview

Status

Completed

Conditions

Intervention / Treatment

Study Type

Interventional

Enrollment

250

Phase

  • Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

This section provides the contact details for those conducting the study, and information on where this study is being conducted.

Study Locations

  • United States
    • Georgia
      • Atlanta, Georgia, United States, 30303
        • Grady Memorial Hospital

Participation Criteria

Researchers look for people who fit a certain description, called eligibility criteria. Some examples of these criteria are a person's general health condition or prior treatments.

Eligibility Criteria

Ages Eligible for Study

45 years to 70 years (ADULT, OLDER_ADULT)

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Yes

Genders Eligible for Study

Male

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

  • Male
  • Age 45-70

Exclusion Criteria:

  • Unable to communicate in English
  • Too ill
  • In police custody
  • Visual acuity worse than 20/60
  • History of prostate cancer
  • Lack of cooperation
  • Overt psychiatric illnesses

Study Plan

This section provides details of the study plan, including how the study is designed and what the study is measuring.

How is the study designed?

Design Details

  • Primary Purpose: ECT
  • Allocation: RANDOMIZED
  • Interventional Model: SINGLE_GROUP
  • Masking: SINGLE

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Discussion of Prostate Cancer Screening

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
DRE
PSA

Collaborators and Investigators

This is where you will find people and organizations involved with this study.

Sponsor

Emory University

Publications and helpful links

The person responsible for entering information about the study voluntarily provides these publications. These may be about anything related to the study.

General Publications

Study record dates

These dates track the progress of study record and summary results submissions to ClinicalTrials.gov. Study records and reported results are reviewed by the National Library of Medicine (NLM) to make sure they meet specific quality control standards before being posted on the public website.

Study Major Dates

Study Start

May 1, 2003

Study Completion

August 1, 2003

Study Registration Dates

First Submitted

September 13, 2005

First Submitted That Met QC Criteria

September 13, 2005

First Posted (ESTIMATE)

September 21, 2005

Study Record Updates

Last Update Posted (ESTIMATE)

September 21, 2005

Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria

September 13, 2005

Last Verified

September 1, 2005

More Information

Terms related to this study

Keywords

Additional Relevant MeSH Terms

Other Study ID Numbers

  • 511-2005

This information was retrieved directly from the website clinicaltrials.gov without any changes. If you have any requests to change, remove or update your study details, please contact register@clinicaltrials.gov. As soon as a change is implemented on clinicaltrials.gov, this will be updated automatically on our website as well.

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