Cancer Research in Switzerland - Krebsliga Schweiz

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It is in this context that the Swiss Cancer League organizes
Communication Skills Training (CST) with the aim to improve
the communication skills of oncology clinicians
(physicians and nurses). Conducted in small groups of
8–10 participants and with a total duration of 30 hours,
CST starts with a videotaped interview conducted by each
participant with a simulated patient and is followed by an
analysis of and feedbacks on the videos, role-plays and
transmission of communication theory. CST is completed
with individual monthly supervision for a period of six
weeks and a second videotaped interview with a simulated
patient.
This study aimed to evaluate the linguistic aspects of CST
based on the videotaped interviews; the evaluations consisted
of a comparison of the first and the second videotaped
interview in CST (pre-/post-comparison) and a comparison
with interviews of clinicians who did not participate
in CST and who interviewed the same simulated patients
with the same scenarios with a six months interval. The
group of clinicians having participated in CST consisted of
57 and the control group of 56 oncology physicians and
nurses.
Communication skills of clinicians were evaluated and
measured by means of communication analysis software
(LaComm) developed at the Institut Jules Bordet (Brussels,
Belgium) by the team under psycho-oncologist
Darius Razavi. This software analyzes the logistic content
(sentences and words) of interviews and categorizes them
by taking into account the three major functions of a consultation:
investigation, support and transmission of information.
In total, the linguistic content of the interviews
is assigned to 44 specific categories; for example, an utterance
like “Did you start treatment?” is categorized as
“closed binary evaluation”, or words like “sad” or “distress”
are categorized as “psychological information”.
This study demonstrated that clinicians who participated
in CST are more inclined than those in the control group
to break bad news by using precise words without using
medical jargon and that they focus more on psychosocial
issues, recognizing the patient as a subject.
This study demonstrated a positive impact of CST on the
communication skills of oncology clinicians, since the observed
changes are in accordance with patient-centred
communication.
Project coordinator
Prof. Dr Friedrich Stiefel
Service de psychiatrie de liaison
Centre hospitalier universitaire vaudois (CHUV)
Bugnon 44
CH-1011 Lausanne
Phone +41 (0)21 314 10 90
Fax +41 (0)021 314 10 86
frederic.stiefel@chuv.ch
von der Weid Nicolas | Long-term outcome of childhood
cancer: Incidence and spectrum of late effects
(KLS 02215-02-2008)
Aim of the study
The Swiss Childhood Cancer Survivor Study (SCCSS) is a
common project of the Swiss Childhood Cancer Registry
and the Swiss Paediatric Oncology Group and is run at the
Institute for Social and Preventive Medicine of the University
of Bern. Aim of the SCCSS was to know, in general
and in many specific aspects, how survivors were doing,
what kind of late effects they suffered from, to detect
them as early as possible and to treat or alleviate them.
Knowledge about long-term toxicities would help to design
newer treatment strategies with same efficacy and
less morbidity.
Methods
Included in the SCCSS were all children and adolescents
diagnosed with a malignant disease in Switzerland between
1976 and 2003. We looked for current addresses
in the former medical files of the patients and through an
Internet-based search system. Survivors with established
addresses received at their home a comprehensive health
questionnaire in the years 2007–2010.
Results
First results are already available in many domains and
have been or will be published soon.
Psychological health
Psychological troubles are not different in frequency or
severity in survivors of paediatric cancer and in the general
population. But the proportion of people with severe
troubles was higher in the survivors, so that in our opinion,
psychological support should be offered to this population.
Socio-economic and education status
Comparing education level reached in survivors and the
general population, no major differences were found. Initially,
survivors had more school difficulties, e. g. needed
to repeat one school year or received teaching support,
but they eventually achieved the same levels of education
as the control population. As expected, survivors of brain
tumours and patients having had a relapse of their primary
cancer (especially leukaemia) showed more problems
and often achieved lower education levels.
Health behaviours (use of alcohol, tobacco, cannabis)
We found different groups of behaviours in the survivors
of cancer; compared to the controls, a larger proportion of
survivors, especially men, engaged in binge drinking (i. e.
consumption of large amounts of alcohol in a short period
of time). Survivors were more active than controls in daily
physical activities but engaged less in sports, especially
women.