[Quality of life in home-based cancer patients: A comparative study of chemotherapy administration route]

[Needs assessment for the establishment of an Oral Therapy Unit]

INTRODUCTION

Oncological at home-treatment improves patient quality of life and autonomy but requires close watchfulness of adverse events and compliance to treatment. For nearly ten years, pharmaceutical consultations for home-based anticancer oral therapies patients are proposed on medical request in Avignon-Provence Cancer Institute (ICAP). Organizational changes led us to modify this management by integrating dedicated nurses to create an Oral Therapy Unit (OTU).

MATERIALS ET METHODS

Needs and expectations assessment questionnaires were proposed to healthcare professionals and patients treated by oral therapies. The analysis of these questionnaires allows to set up an OTU, integrating a dedicated nurse, adapted to the expectations of patients and healthcare professionals. About 8 months later, a new evaluation was carried out to assess the impact of this new support for patient care and health professionals' organization.

RESULTS

The results of the studies carried out before OTU implementation highlight the importance of multi-professional support for patients from the start of treatment and during the follow-up. With the new OTU pathway, professionals expect a patient course improvement (94%), a better compliance (88%), a therapeutic accidents reduction (81%) and an improvement in the patient-caregiver relationship (69%). Regarding the organization, 56% of them are expecting to save medical and pharmaceutical time.

CONCLUSION

The OTU creation in our institution and these new multi-professionals' teams' management of patients has obtained a favourable opinion from healthcare professionals and patient satisfaction.

[Hospital - community pharmacy coordination for the dispensing of oral antineoplastic drugs: An observational study in the French county of the Aveyron]

INTRODUCTION

The growing number of oral antineoplastic agents delivered by French community pharmacies has modified the job and roles of community pharmacists. Coordination between hospitals (oncology centers) and community pharmacies has become essential for a quality work in this field. The goal of this work was to obtain information about the feeling of the community pharmacies teams in a French county (Aveyron) regarding the communication tools offered by various hospitals with an oncology service (when receiving a beginning prescription for an oral antineoplastic drug), and to evaluate the impact of these tools on their practice.

METHODS

A declarative survey was submitted to the 109 community pharmacies of this county to evaluate their relationship with their nearest oncology centers (including communication tools) and collect their opinion on the quality of the coordination and their pharmaceutical exercise.

RESULTS

The response rate was of 54% (59 community pharmacies). Communication between the oncology centers and the pharmacies was limited (only 50% of the pharmacies received information complementary to the prescription), the available tools were not used very frequently (44% of pharmacies didn't use shared medical records) and there was a strong feeling of rupture between the pharmacies and the oncology centers, impacting the quality of their work (46% of respondents indicated being little or incapable of correctly validating the indication of the anticancer drug).

DISCUSSION

This study illustrates the under-use of the available hospital-community pharmacy communication tools and the fact that the pharmacies feel difficulties to correctly deliver oral antineoplastic medications due to a lack of information.