ABSTRACT
INTRODUCTION: Since the life expectancy of women with breast cancer has increased, tertiary prevention, through the Therapeutic Patient Education (TPE), is now a part of patient support. The main objective of this pilot study is to evaluate the cost of a nutrition and physical activity TPE program intended to help women with breast cancer in the management of their weight. METHODS: This study is a description of costs, based on the micro-costing method, of the first two years of the program, conducted on an outpatient basis, at the Cancer Center Leon Berard, Lyon, France, with the involvement of a dietician and a physical activity trainer. Only the direct costs were taken into account, from the hospital's perspective, in Euro 2016. Sensitivity analyses were also conducted. RESULTS: Sixty-five patients were included in the study in 2014/2015. Their mean age was 52 years, the majority of them were in sick leave (65 %). In most cases, they had undergone surgery (95 %) and chemotherapy (71 %). The average cost per patient of the program was 541.04 (SD 88.44; 95 % IC [520.06-562.03]) excluding overhead costs, i.e. 687.13 overhead costs included. The unit cost of the dietician was the most sensitive parameters. CONCLUSION: This cost study, an accurate estimate of the production costs, allows to inform the decision-maker in term of pricing of such a program and to make the necessary adjustments in order to optimize the organization of this activity.
Subject(s)
Breast Neoplasms/rehabilitation , Diet, Healthy , Exercise , Patient Education as Topic , Program Evaluation/economics , Tertiary Prevention/education , Adult , Aged , Body Weight , Female , France , Humans , Middle Aged , Patient Education as Topic/economics , Pilot ProjectsABSTRACT
This literature review aims to synthesize available studies and to update findings in order to obtain a current, comprehensive estimate of the benefits of pain education. Forty-four original articles obtained from the PubMed database were analyzed to investigate which protocols could be most effective in improving pain management. Recent studies indicate a growing interest in evaluating patients' skills and attitudes; these include satisfaction with cancer pain treatment, patient-reported improvement, and patient participation-all of which could be dependable benchmarks for evaluating the effectiveness of educational programs. Besides pain measurement, recent studies advance support for the importance of assessing newly developed outcome criteria. In this sense, patients' active participation and decision making in their pain management are probably the most relevant goals of pain education.
Subject(s)
Analgesics, Opioid/administration & dosage , Cancer Pain/drug therapy , Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice , Pain Management/methods , Patient Education as Topic/methods , Analgesics, Opioid/therapeutic use , Communication , Decision Making , Humans , Patient Participation , Patient Satisfaction , Quality of LifeABSTRACT
Therapeutic education helps patients develop new skills to understand and manage their disease, their treatments and thereby improve their quality of life. This article presents the example of a therapeutic education workshop aimed at recognising the warning signs of febrile aplasia, to optimise its treatment and to reduce morbidity and mortality in this major complication in oncology.
