Racial and ethnic disparities in communication study enrollment for young people with cancer: A descriptive analysis of the literature

Providing Adolescents with Access to Online Patient Portals: Interviews with Parent-Adolescent Dyads

OBJECTIVE

To identify perceived benefits, problems, facilitators, and barriers to adolescent online patient portal use.

STUDY DESIGN

Qualitative, semi-structured interviews with dyads of parents and adolescents with or without chronic illness. The study team purposively sampled for racial and ethnic minorities and fathers. Three team members then performed thematic analysis of the transcripts, with subsequent dyadic analysis of themes represented by related parents and adolescents.

RESULTS

We performed 102 interviews with 51 dyads of parents and adolescents (26 with chronic illness, 25 without chronic illness). Nearly all participants believed that adolescents should be permitted portal access. We identified 4 themes related to portal benefits: improves adolescent's knowledge of health; supports medical self-management and autonomy; strengthens communication and relationships; and supports parental influence. We identified 4 themes related to portal problems: misunderstanding or confusion; emotional distress; strain on relationships; and irresponsible use of portal. Facilitators of portal use included severity of illness, adolescent's curiosity, and ease of technology use. Barriers included lack of awareness or interest, complexity of information, and access difficulties. Twenty adolescents (39%) did not know they could access the portal, and 23 (45%) lacked interest in portals. Parents and adolescents seldom used the portal as a collaborative tool, and instead were engaging with the portal independently.

CONCLUSION

Parents and adolescents perceive several benefits and problems with portal use, but many adolescents lack interest in using portals. Adolescent portals represent an underutilized resource to engage adolescents in their care.

Questions to promote child-centered care in racially discordant interactions in pediatric oncology

OBJECTIVE

To examine questioning practices in racially discordant interactions and describe how these practices engendered child-centered care.

METHODS

We used applied conversation analysis to analyze a collection of 300 questions directed to children across 10 cases involving children of color and their families in disease reevaluation appointments in pediatric oncology.

RESULTS

Our analysis generated two patterns: 1) both the pediatric oncologists' and caregivers built upon one another's talk to enable the child's conversational turn, and 2) the oncologists' reformulated requests as questions to invite the child's permission and cooperation for completing exams and understanding symptoms.

CONCLUSION

Children, pediatric oncologists, and caregivers coordinated their actions to enable children to participate as recipients of and respondents to questions. The analysis of real-time interactions illuminates practices for centering children in clinical encounters and the benefits of doing so.

PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS

This study's findings have implications for defining competencies and practices for fostering child-centered communication, creating training materials based on real-time encounters, and identifying strategies for humanizing pediatric patient experiences.

Palliative Care Clinician Perspectives on Person-Centered End-of-Life Communication for Racially and Culturally Minoritized Persons with Cancer

The aim of this study was to examine interdisciplinary clinicians' perceptions of priorities in serious illness communication and shared decision-making with racially and culturally minoritized persons at end of life. Clinicians (N = 152) read a detailed case study about a patient self-identifying as Black and American Indian who describes mistrust of the healthcare system. Participants then responded to three open-ended questions about communication strategies and approaches they would employ in providing care. We conducted a thematic analysis of participants' responses to questions using an iterative, inductive approach. Interdisciplinary clinicians from nursing (48%), social work (36%), and chaplaincy (16%), responded to the study survey. A total of four themes emerged: (1) person-centered, authentic, and culturally-sensitive care; (2) pain control; (3) approaches to build trust and connection; and (4) understanding communication challenges related to racial differences. Significant efforts have been made to train clinicians in culturally inclusive communication, yet we know little about how clinicians approach "real world" scenarios during which patients from structurally minoritized groups describe care concerns. We outline implications for identifying unconscious bias, informing educational interventions to support culturally inclusive communication, and improving the quality of end-of-life care for patients with cancer from minoritized groups.

A cross-sectional study of the socio-demographic and epidemiological factors associated with childhood cancer in Cali, Colombia

This study investigates the occurrence of childhood cancer between the years 2015 and 2016 in the city of Cali, Colombia, with respect to: a) sociodemographic characteristics, b) type of cancer, c) epidemiological weeks of cancer and d) comparative survival according to health system affiliation by consolidating the records notified to the municipal health secretariat. Statistically significant differences were found between the groups analysed in relation to the variables related to the type of cancer (p = 0.006). With respect to the proportion of cancer mortality between the years 2015–2016 there was no significant change, even though survival increased in the year 2016. The implications for collective health and public policies in Latin America are discussed.