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Abstract
Background
Despite the extensive literature supporting distress screening at relevant transitions of care, the implementation of distress screening remains limited in ambulatory surgery settings. Our multidisciplinary team completed a pilot study to assess the feasibility and acceptability of including a standardized psychosocial assessment, the Distress Thermometer (DT), with the collection of admission vital signs by Patient Care Technicians (PCTs) in patients undergoing oncology surgery.
Methods
We assessed feasibility by the response rate and acceptability through discussions with the PCTs.
Results
Of the 189 men who underwent radical prostatectomy at our center, 71 were approached with the DT scale, and all patients who were approached completed the DT with no missing data. The staff reported no issues with data collection. A total of 21/71 (30%; 95% CI 19%, 42%) reported a clinically relevant distress DT ≥ 4.
Conclusion
Our results demonstrated that incorporating the DT into vital sign collection was feasible, acceptable, and provided a valuable assessment.
Acknowledgements
We sincerely thank the Patient Care Technicians at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center’s Josie Robertson Surgical Center for their assistance with the data collection.
Disclosure statement
This work was supported in part by the National Institutes of Health/National Cancer Institute (NIH/NCI) with a Cancer Center Support Grant to Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (P30 CA008748) and the Leslie B. Tyson Nursing Research Award.