Prostate Cancer Screening: Fostering Informed Decisions

In spite of the significant disease burden presented by PCa, the utility of screening asymptomatic men remains controversial, as it has not yet been demonstrated by a randomized trial that early diagnosis and treatment of PCa reduces disease-related mortality. The primary goal of the proposed study is neither to encourage nor discourage PCa screening, but to evaluate a method of patient education that is designed to provide detailed screening and treatment-related information and to clarify patient preferences and values, ultimately assisting men in making an informed screening decision. The target population for this educational intervention will be men who have registered to undergo PCa screening within a free, mass screening program. Although at first this may appear to be an atypical group to target for an educational intervention, we present information suggesting that this population represents a large and uniformed group for whom effective and inexpensive methods of education are of critical importance. We will test the impact of providing men with detailed information and a decision aid vs. usual care information and the impact of the timing of administration of information (a week or more prior to the screening vs. usual care, which is on the day of screening). Participants will include men who register for the annual PCa mass screening programs held at Georgetown University and at Howard University during the 2004 and 2005 screening programs. Following enrollment and the baseline interview, participants will be randomly assigned to one of four groups: 1) Information plus Decision Aid received prior to the scheduled screening date (IDA-home); 2) Information plus Decision Aid received on the day of screening (IDA-clinic); 3) Usual Care information received prior to the scheduled screening date (UC-home); or 4) Usual Care information received on the day of the screening (UC-clinic). Follow-up assessments will be conducted post-screening, post receipt of screening results, and one-year post-intervention, to measure knowledge, decisional conflict, decisional satisfaction, and the actual screening decision. We will utilize a 2 (IDA/UC) X 2 (Home/Clinic) X 2 (AA/white) repeated measures analysis of covariance to assess for group differences on these outcomes. If found to be effective, the long-term goal of this research program is to disseminate this informational decision aid for use in mass screening programs.