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

February 11, 2026 updated by: Mihaela Onea, Iuliu Hatieganu University of Medicine and Pharmacy

Attitudes Towards Deprescribing of Non-oncologic Medication in Cancer Pacient and the Impact of an Educational Intervention by a Clinical Pharmacist

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

Study Overview

Status

Recruiting

Conditions

Intervention / Treatment

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, will investigate health care literacy using a validated questionnaire in Romanian (HLS-EU-Q16). In this study investigators will also study 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 Type

Interventional

Enrollment (Estimated)

120

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 Contact

  • Name: Mihaela I Clinical Pharmacist, PhD student
  • Phone Number: +4 0741167906
  • Email: miha.onea@yahoo.com

Study Locations

  • Romania
    • Maramureş
      • Baia Mare, Maramureş, Romania, 430031
        • Recruiting
        • Constantin Opris Emergency County Hospital
        • Contact:
          • Mihaela I Clinical Pharmacist, PhD student
          • Phone Number: +4 0741167906
          • Email: miha.onea@yahoo.com
        • Contact:
          • Mihaela PhD student, clinical pharmacist, pharmacist
          • Phone Number: +40741167906
          • Email: miha.onea@yahoo.com

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

  • Adult
  • Older Adult

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

No

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

  • cancer patients in palliative treatment
  • ECOG 1-2

Exclusion Criteria:

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

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: Other
  • Allocation: N/A
  • Interventional Model: Single Group Assignment
  • Masking: None (Open Label)

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm
Intervention / Treatment
Experimental: Educational intervention by a clinical pharmacist
educational intervention using a brochure and a video with information about deprescribing, effectiveness and adverse reactions of medicines and the role of patient in treatment decision
Other: Educational intervention by a clinical pharmacist
All participants will respond to two questionnaires, both validated in Romanian and some demographic information. One is the rPATD questionnaire that investigate attitudes towards deprescribing of medication and the other one is the HLS-EU-Q16 that investigates medical literacy of participants. After completion, the clinical pharmacist will give a brochure and a video about the process of deprescribing, information about the efficacy and the adverse reactions of medicines and the role of pacient in treatment decision. When participants come to another cancer treatment (after 14 , 21 or 28 days), the rPATD will be completed again.

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Impact of educational intervention performed by clinical pharmacist
Time Frame: 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, investigators can see if and what is changed in the perception of participants.
from enrollment to the next cycle of oncological treatment (14, 21 or 28 days days)

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Attitudes towards deprescribing medications in cancer patients in palliative treatment
Time Frame: 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 ), investigators assess if Romanian cancer patients are willing to have their medication deprescribed. The questionnaire has 4 factors:

Burden, Appropriateness, Involvement and Concerns about Stopping. Each factor consists of 5 statements and participants are invited to respond to a 5-point Likert scale (strongly agree =5, agree =4, unsure =3, disagree =2, strongly disagree =1). Factors' scores are calculated as the average of the summed score for the five statements pertaining to each factor, with a final score per factor ranging from 1 to 5. A higher score indicates a greater perceived burden, higher concerns about stopping and greater involvement in medication related decisions. The appropriateness factor is reversed scored so that a higher score indicates a greater belief in the appropriateness of current medications
from enrollment to the next cycle of oncological treatment (14, 21 or 28 days days) when they answer the second time
The level of health literacy
Time Frame: at enrollment
Using the questionnaire HLS-EU-Q16 investigators can asses the level of health literacy of participants. Each of the 16 items are scored on a 4-point Likert scale ranging from 1 ("very difficult") to 4 ("very easy"). For interpretation of the final score, all items of the scale are summed, giving a score ranging between 0 (no health literacy) to 16 (high health literacy). For ease of interpretability, the three levels are identified: inadequate health literacy (0-8), problematic health literacy [9-12], and sufficient health literacy
at enrollment

Other Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Demographic characteristics of the population included in this study
Time Frame: at enrollment
Investigators will be able to characterize a population of cancer patients in Romania: number of medications, number of diseases, social background (still working or retiered) , literacy (under 8 classes, 8 classes, highschool, vocational school, superior degree).
at enrollment

Collaborators and Investigators

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

Sponsor

Iuliu Hatieganu University of Medicine and Pharmacy

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 (Actual)

January 13, 2025

Primary Completion (Estimated)

April 30, 2026

Study Completion (Estimated)

April 30, 2027

Study Registration Dates

First Submitted

January 7, 2025

First Submitted That Met QC Criteria

January 7, 2025

First Posted (Actual)

January 13, 2025

Study Record Updates

Last Update Posted (Actual)

February 13, 2026

Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria

February 11, 2026

Last Verified

February 1, 2026

More Information

Terms related to this study

Keywords

Additional Relevant MeSH Terms

Other Study ID Numbers

  • 198/11OCT2024

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?

UNDECIDED

IPD Plan Description

PhD contract might affect sharing the IPD until PhD defense

Drug and device information, study documents

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product

No

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product

No

product manufactured in and exported from the U.S.

No

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.

Clinical Trials on Cancer

Clinical Trials on Educational intervention by a clinical pharmacist

Search Similar Trials

Sponsors and Collaborators

Medical Conditions

Drug Interventions

CROs by country

CROs in Djibouti

Conditions

Rare Diseases

Drug Interventions

Dietary Supplements

Sponsor/Collaborators

Locations

Subscribe