�Patients can buoy find it hard to absorb what their doctors tell them during nerve-wracking moments. Recordings or transcripts of government agency visits could help people with genus Cancer or their family members recall medical information they might otherwise have lost, a young review suggests.
"It is important to moot anything that can meliorate the cancer patient's experience, especially interventions that can be well accommodated inside the normal office call in," said pb author Marie Pitkethly, co-coordinator of the Scottish Primary Care Research Network in Dundee.
The brushup included 16 studies of 2,318 adults world Health Organization either had cancer themselves or were dealing with a close relative with cancer. The researchers looked at the effects of providing recordings or summaries of doctor-patient interactions on information recall and savvy, participation in follow-up visits, satisfaction and other concerns.
Many of the studies were small and did non always measure the same things, qualification it hard to consolidate the findings. However, Pitkethly said, the researchers arrived at the "general stopping point that many participants establish recordings or summaries valuable, and there was no evidence of any injury to patients."
The review appears in the latest number of The Cochrane Library, a publishing of The Cochrane Collaboration, an international organization that evaluates medical research. Systematic reviews like this unitary draw evidence-based conclusions around medical practice after considering both the content and quality of existing medical trials on a topic.
"I don't think that there is enough evidence to either support or contest the enjoyment of recordings on a routine basis," Pitkethly aforementioned. "There whitethorn well be other improvements to communication that would be a more effective use of resources and have a greater impingement on outcomes."
Richard Frankel Ph.D., a prof of medicine and gerontology at the Indiana University School of Medicine, aforesaid many hoi polloi who have cancer information at the doctor's bureau do not accurately remember what the physician said.
"Anything that toilet be through with to increase their electric potential for retaining information is worth nerve-wracking," he said. "This reexamination shows that the use of sound or videotapes can be very useful in some patients, just not all patients. The primary example this review teaches us that there needs to be an individualized coming to having difficult conversations with patients."
Frankel said that the issues raised are especially timely.
"Since 2000 and the Institute of Medicine reports on quality in health care, there has been a shift from a health care provider-centered model to one that responds more to the needs of the consumer," he aforementioned. "This has coincided with studies suggesting patient-centered medicine has a positive impact on tone of health care. Offering audiotapes or providing alternative ways of communicating is a way to move the focus to patients and how they instruct best. "
The Cochrane Collaboration is an international not-for-profit, independent organization that produces and disseminates systematic reviews of health care interventions and promotes the lookup for evidence in the form of clinical trials and other studies of interventions. Visit http://www.cochrane.org for more information.
Pitkethly M, et al. Recordings or summaries of consultations for people with cancer. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews. Issue 3, 2008.
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