Clinical trial · Interventional
Electronic Psycho-oncological Adaptive Screening Program
Evaluation of an Electronic Psycho-oncological Adaptive Screening Program to Assess Psychological Burden and Need for Psycho-social Support Among Cancer Patients
- 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)
Background: Psychological burden in cancer patients may worsen quality of life and even medical outcomes such as mortality. Nevertheless, many distressed patients are not recognized by the treating clinicians and left untreated even though effective psychosocial interventions exist. Existing screenings programs have multiple limitations such as the necessity of time consuming training and involvement of clincial staff, conventional screening instruments with limited diagnostic accuracy and the focusing on objective measures of distress, thereby neglecting subjective supportive care needs. Aims: To address some of the limitations outlined above, we developed an electronic psycho-oncological adaptive screening program (EPAS) which separately assesses distress and psychosocial care needs and provides immediate patient feedback with individualized recommendations about psychosocial care services. Design: Patients of the intervention are compared to a control condition. All participants are assessed at three measurement points (baseline, and at 3-months and 6-months follow-up). Outcomes: Outcomes assess aspects related to psychosocial care services, well-being and satisfaction. Recruitment: Patients are recruited within suitable health care facilities within the University Cancer Center Hamburg (UCCH) and other facilities in the competence network of the UCCH. Patients are checked for eligibility via review of the medical chart and consecutively recruited by research assistants. Duration of the study: From start of recruitment, 2 years are planned until data analysis. 1 year is planned for recruitment. Analyses: We conduct group comparisons in the study outcomes, both unconditional and condcitional (controlled for care relevant co-variates).
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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cancer | Malignant Neoplasm | ALIAS | 0.90 |
Interventions
Interventions (1)
| Intervention | Type | Mapped drug | Match |
|---|---|---|---|
| EPAS (electronic psycho-oncological adapative screening program) | Behavioral | — | UNRESOLVED |
Design
Arms and outcomes
Arms (2)
- type
- EXPERIMENTAL
- label
- EPAS screening (intervention)
- description
- Patients undergo EPAS (electronic psycho-oncological adaptive screening), a tablet-based screening application consisting of three adaptive tests and one supportive care checklist. EPAS provides immediate feedback via a printed results page, which presents and interprets the level of distress and contains individualized recommendations for psychosocial services. The results pages are printed by research assistants immediately after the screening on a mobile printer and given to the participants together with a brochure containing information about all psychosocial services available at the health care institution. The treating physicians also receive a slightly modified results page, but are not expected to discuss these with the patient unless they are highly distressed. Before and during the screening, patients are explained how to use the program by the research assistance and supported if needed. The whole screening process takes about 30 minutes.
- interventionNames
- Behavioral: EPAS (electronic psycho-oncological adapative screening program)
- type
- NO_INTERVENTION
- label
- Care as usual (control)
- description
- Patients complete the assessment paper pencil. The same instruments as in the intervention condition are used except for the 3 adaptive tests (i.e., the supportive care checklist and the outcomes). Neither patients nor physicians receive any feedback of the results. Psychosocial services are recommended by the physicians on their own discretion only, and patients are not handed out the information brochure.
Eligibility
Eligibility (as posted)
- Sex
- All
- Minimum age
- 18 Years
Show eligibility criteria text
Inclusion Criteria: * minimum age of 18 years * diagnosed with any malignancy according to ICD-10 (first diagnosis or relapse) Exclusion Criteria: * Patients with any impairments interfering with the ability to give informed consent
References
Publications (2)
- DERIVEDSpringer F, Sautier L, Schilling G, Koch-Gromus U, Bokemeyer C, Friedrich M, Mehnert-Theuerkauf A, Esser P. Effect of depression, anxiety, and distress screeners on the need, intention, and utilization of psychosocial support services among cancer patients. Support Care Cancer. 2023 Jan 16;31(2):117. doi: 10.1007/s00520-023-07580-2. PMID 36645499
- DERIVEDEsser P, Sautier L, Sarkar S, Schilling G, Bokemeyer C, Koch U, Rose M, Friedrich M, Nolte S, Walter O, Mehnert-Theuerkauf A. Evaluation of an electronic psycho-oncological adaptive screening program (EPAS) with immediate patient feedback: findings from a German cluster intervention study. J Cancer Surviv. 2022 Dec;16(6):1401-1413. doi: 10.1007/s11764-021-01121-8. Epub 2021 Nov 4. PMID 34735695