A study of follow up care after treatment for lung cancer

Please note this trial is no longer recruiting patients.

This study is the first step in developing a new way of providing follow up care for people who have lung cancer. The researchers want to find out what people think about current follow up care.

After treatment for lung cancer, you usually have follow up appointments with your specialist doctor. This is so they can check if you have any problems or new symptoms, and prescribe any more medicine or treatment you need. But clinics are very busy and not all patients find these appointments very helpful.

Research into other types of cancer has shown that specialist nurses can provide follow up care that patients do find helpful.

Researchers hope to develop a new follow up service for people with lung cancer. It will be led by nurses (nurse led) and will help patients and carers to cope with symptoms such as pain or breathlessness, as well as helping them to manage problems such as anxiety and depression. To begin with, they want to learn more about what people think of their follow up care.

The aims of this study are to

Learn more about the best way of providing follow up care for people with lung cancer
Work out who nurse led follow up will be suitable for
Find out what sort of extra training the specialist nurses will need
Learn more about how a nurse led service would work and how it could meet the needs of patients

Please note – taking part in this study does not affect your treatment in any way. The study is unlikely to help you directly, but the results may help to develop services that will help people in the future.

Recruitment

Start 01/11/2009

End 31/07/2011

Phase

Other

Who can enter

You can enter this trial if you

Have lung cancer and have finished your initial treatment or you are a carer for someone in this situation
Are at least 18 years old

You cannot enter this trial if you

Have mesothelioma
Are taking part in another clinical trial

Trial design

The researchers will interview about 40 people who are either patients or carers. They will invite people to take part in these interviews – you cannot volunteer.

If you agree to have an interview, a member of the study team will ask what you think about follow up care. The interview will take about an hour and a half. You can have someone with you if you wish.

The researcher will ask your permission to make an audio tape recording of the interview. They may ask if they can contact you again in a few months time to see if you would be willing to meet with other people in the study and talk about this more. If you don’t want to do this, you don’t have to. You can still take part in the study.

All the information from the interviews will be kept confidential. It will not be possible to identify you in any results from this study.

The researchers will also interview doctors, nurses and people who manage services. These interviews, along with the views of patients and carers, as well as what they see in clinics, will help them to plan a new service. They will then do more research to see how well the new service works.

Hospital visits

The interview will take place at a time and place that is convenient for you. This may be in your home or at the hospital or university. Taking part will not involve any other hospital visits.