Clinical trial · Observational
Survival Expectations and Hope Among Cancer Patients at End-of-Life
- Source
- ClinicalTrials.gov
- Retrieved
- Sep 8, 2026
- Layer
- normalized (units and labels harmonized; values unchanged)
- Run
- ING-CLINICALTRIALS-20260908-000001
Summary
Brief summary (as posted)
Literature shows that less than half of advanced cancer patients accurately understand their prognosis, with most being overly optimistic. Investigators suspect that many patients are reporting not what they believe, but what they would like to believe. This study aims to discern patient's beliefs about prognosis independent of hope, to identify factors that influence patient's beliefs, and to explore patient preferences for prognostic information. Investigators propose to randomize 200 cancer patients with a prognosis of less than one year to receive one of the two versions of a survey. Investigators hypothesize that, although many patients will continue to be overly optimistic about their prognosis, those patients responding to Version 2, followed by Version 1, will provide more accurate estimates. Efforts to improve decision making require an understanding of patients' beliefs and preferences for receiving prognostic information and identifying strategies to clearly convey that information. This study will fill that gap.
Conditions
Conditions (1)
Free-text conditions as registered, with the CancerIndex entity they were reconciled to and the match type.
| Condition (as posted) | Mapped entity | Match | Confidence |
|---|---|---|---|
| Advanced Cancer | Malignant Neoplasm | CURATED_BROADER | 0.78 |
Interventions
Interventions (0)
Data not yet available
Design
Arms and outcomes
Arms (2)
- label
- Questionnaire Set A
- label
- Questionnaire Set B
Primary outcomes (1)
- measure
- The proportion of patients who knew they can not be cured
- timeFrame
- Baseline
- description
- The primary aim of this study is to attempt to discern patient's beliefs about their prognosis independent of hope. We propose to address this aim by randomizing 200 Stage IV cancer patients with a prognosis of less than a year to receive one of the two sets of a carefully designed and pilot tested survey. Set A includes prognosis questions similar to those used in prior studies. Set B is identical to Set A but incorporates an incentive compatible strategy where a reward is offered for 'correct' answers, as determined by their treating physician's prediction. The incentive compatible approach has been shown to increase the accuracy of responses in a wide range of domains, including mortality risk predictions. We hypothesize that, although many patients will continue to convey an overly optimistic assessment of their prognosis, those patients responding to Set B followed by Set A, will provide more accurate estimates.
Secondary outcomes (1)
Eligibility
Eligibility (as posted)
- Sex
- All
- Minimum age
- 21 Years
Show eligibility criteria text
Inclusion Criteria: * The inclusion criteria for patients are: * Age ≥ 21 years old * Singaporean/Singapore Permanent Resident (PR) * Diagnosed with advanced cancer by the primary physician * Prognosis of ≤ 1 year as determined by the primary treating oncologist responding "YES" to the question "Do you believe that there is a high chance (greater than 50%) that this patient is unlikely to be alive in 12 months?" Only patients for whom the physicians respond as "YES" will be approached to participate in the study Exclusion Criteria: * Patients deemed to be mentally incompetent and those not aware of their diagnosis.
References
Publications (0)
Data not yet available