Evidence map›Paper›PMID 39371506›Full record

ArticleIndian journal of palliative care

A Multicentric Field Test to Study the Validity and Feasibility of the SHS-tool to Screen for Serious Health-related Suffering in Adult Patients with Cancer.

Nandini Vallath, Aneka Paul, Arunangshu Ghoshal, Jenifer Jeba Sundararaj, Kalpana Balakrishnan, SHS Field-test Working Group of the National Cancer Grid-India

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Article in Indian journal of palliative care. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.

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1 · What the graph read from it

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2 · The registry

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3 · Its place in the literature

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4 · The record

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5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

6 authors.

Nandini VallathDepartment of Pain and Palliative Medicine, St Johns Medical College Hospital, Bengaluru, Karnataka, India.
Aneka PaulFormer Trustee, Golden Butterflies Children's Palliative Care Foundation, Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India.
Arunangshu GhoshalDepartment of Palliative Medicine, University Health Network, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
Jenifer Jeba SundararajDepartment of Palliative Medicine, Christian Medical College, Vellore, Tamil Nadu, India.
Kalpana BalakrishnanDepartment of Anaesthesia, Pain and Palliative Care, Cancer Institute (WIA), Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India.
SHS Field-test Working Group of the National Cancer Grid-India

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Objectives: The 2017 Lancet Commission reports 'Serious Health-related Suffering' (SHS) as an abyss in healthcare services. It lists 20 common health conditions and 15 symptoms as commonly associated with SHS. In 2015, 80% of SHS prevalence, an estimated 61 million, was noted as from low-middle-income countries. Acknowledging the high prevalence of SHS in cancer patients and aligning with global efforts to address and alleviate the suffering, the National Cancer Grid of India developed and evaluated the SHS screening tool (SHS-tool). The SHS tool was developed during phase 1 of the study through a systematic consensus-building methodology. During phase 2, the validity and feasibility study of the SHS tool was completed through a multicentric field test, which is described here. Materials and Methods: The SHS tool developed during phase 1 was field-tested across nine tertiary cancer care centres (TCC sites) selected from different healthcare sectors and regions of India. The study utilised a purposive sample of 254 cancer patients to evaluate the validity of the SHS screening tool at selected sites and additionally recorded the feasibility, relevance, acceptability and feedback comments from patients ( Results: The field-test TCC-sites represented government academic institutions, non-government and private sectors. The sites used patient waiting areas and inpatient/daycare wards for conducting field tests. The Cronbach's alpha of the SHS-tool questionnaire showed an internal consistency of 0.728. The tool detected SHS in 137/254 patients, compared to 116/254 through the interview method. The outcomes concurred with that of the interview in 64.17% of instances. The tool exhibited a sensitivity of 70% and specificity of 59%. 66.67% of patients might not have reached the interviewers if not for the field test processes. The feasibility questionnaire responses from patients ( Conclusion: The SHS tool is validated for screening SHS where none exists. It has been found to be a feasible, relevant and acceptable tool for use in adult cancer patients attending TCCs across India. Insights from analysing the feedback comments from the stakeholders have been integrated as 'instruction for use' for refined implementation of the SHS tool. The SHS tool may be utilised to recognise and trigger an in-depth evaluation and expedited access to essential palliative care packages towards alleviating it, as recommended by the Lancet Commission. Future studies using the SHS tool in other disease conditions with a high burden of SHS can assess its wider applicability.

Indexed as

Essential palliative care packageScreeningSerious health-related sufferingTool validation

Identifiers

PMID39371506
PMCPMC11450810

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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.