Training Model to Advance Support of the Family as a Caregiving System in the Inpatient Oncology Setting

The purpose of this study is to provide a communication training program to inpatient nurses and social workers at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in order to help them assist caregiving families. The importance of this training program is that it aims to teach nurses and social workers how and when to respond more effectively and compassionately to challenges faced by caregiving families. One of the goals of this program is to address family support needs during a patient's hospitalization.

Study Overview

• Status: Active, not recruiting
• Conditions: Support of the Family as a Caregiving System
• Intervention / Treatment: Behavioral: Working with the Caregiving Family (WCF) training; Behavioral: questionnaires

• Study Type: Interventional
• Enrollment (Estimated): 80
• Phase: Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

Study Locations

• United States
  • New York
    • New York, New York, United States, 10065
      • Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center

Participation Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

• Ages Eligible for Study: 12 years and older (Child, Adult, Older Adult)
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: Yes

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

• Participating Providers:
• Provider is an MSKCC acute care advanced practice nurse and/or inpatient social worker as per self-report.
• Plans to attend at least 4/6 the didactic training sessions, and 3/6 consolidation sessions as per self-report.

A patient will be approached if:

• Patient has been admitted to an inpatient service at MSKCC.
• Patient is able to designate at least one close person who is involved in the patient's care and is willing to participate. In the case that the patient is a minor (age 7-17 yrs), s/he will need to designate at least one close, adult person who is involved in the patient's care and is willing to participate.

Family members will be approached if:

• They were identified as a close other (including a family friend) involved in the care of an admitted patient on a participating provider's floor

Exclusion Criteria:

• Evidence of cognitive impairment severe enough to preclude completing survey instruments as per clinical or research staff judgment or EMR.
• Determined to not be appropriate for this study as per clinical judgment. Anyone, patient or family member, who is younger than 12 years old.
• Anyone, patient or family member, who does not speak English.

Study Plan

How is the study designed?

Design Details

• Primary Purpose: Supportive Care
• Allocation: N/A
• Interventional Model: Single Group Assignment
• Masking: None (Open Label)

Number of Arms

1

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm

Intervention / Treatment

Experimental: Working with the Caregiving Family (WCF) training; This is a new training curriculum for inpatient oncology providers called Working with the Caregiving Family (WCF) training, a program designed to teach MSKCC inpatient staff to address family-level concerns during acute hospitalization. The WCF training will teach staff to recognize and inquire about areas of family distress that are likely to impact the caregiving process; to provide brief, supportive interventions, and/or to transition families to specialized support services when needed. We will provide staff with skills to address especially challenging family situations (e.g., noncompliance with medical care, conflict, poor communication) in collaborative and compassionate ways. We will teach clinicians to intervene and respond more effectively when problematic relationships develop within families or between families and larger systems (e.g., medical team, institutional programs).

Behavioral: Working with the Caregiving Family (WCF) training; Training curriculum will be comprised of 2 phases to be attended sequentially: (l) The Didactic Phase will consist of 6 twice a month seminars, administered over a 3 month period. Each seminar includes a 1 hour lecture & discussion followed by 1 hour of role-play exercises; Lecture segments may include short training videos which Dr. Zaider uses in the nurses' training module she teaches through the Communication Skills Laboratory. The teaching portion of the didactic sessions of the training may also be videotaped as a reference point for curriculum review. Will explain to the providers that videotapes will only be available to study staff & that the role play portion will not be recorded; (2) Consolidation Phase will consist of 6 twice a month peer-group supervision meetings for ongoing consultation on family cases, also held across a 3 month period. Length of these consolidations sessions will be up to 2 hours.; Other Names: Participants will be asked to attend at least 3/6 supervision meetings, which will feature a case presentation with consultation in a peer group format.; Once they complete the sessions they will receive a Letter of Recognition as documentation that they participated in this training.; Behavioral: questionnaires

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Provider outcomes	which include observed changes in skills (Family Skills Adherence Scale) and subjective confidence level (Confidence in Family Skills Questionnaire) in conducting a family-centered psychosocial consultation with a caregiving family	2 years

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
patient and/or family members'outcomes	which include caregivers' satisfaction with aspects of psychosocial care (Satisfaction with Emotional Support Scale measure), perceived quality of communication about illness (Family Session Communication Measure) and perceived alliance with the participating nurse or social worker (Family Alliance Scale)	2 years

Collaborators and Investigators

• Sponsor: Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
• Collaborators: Ackerman Institute for Family
• Investigators: Principal Investigator: Talia Zaider, PhD, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center

Publications and helpful links

Helpful Links

• Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center

Study record dates

Study Major Dates

• Study Start (Actual): February 1, 2013
• Primary Completion (Estimated): February 1, 2025
• Study Completion (Estimated): February 1, 2025

Study Registration Dates

• First Submitted: February 28, 2013
• First Submitted That Met QC Criteria: March 4, 2013
• First Posted (Estimated): March 6, 2013

Study Record Updates

• Last Update Posted (Estimated): March 4, 2024
• Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria: March 1, 2024
• Last Verified: March 1, 2024

More Information

Terms related to this study

• Keywords: practice nurse; clinical Nurse; inpatient staff; inpatient social worker; didactic training sessions; 13-030
• Other Study ID Numbers: 13-030