Using the RE-AIM Model to Translate Distress Screening into Cancer Care

The goal of this innovative psychosocial oncology educational initiative is to educate participants through the Distress Screening Curriculum to adopt, implement, and maintain programs for routine distress screening of patients in treatment for cancer in their respective cancer-care facilities. Five components comprise a comprehensive distress screening program: using a validated, sensitive measure for identifying distressed patients; assessing patients for sources of their distress; referring patients and families to needed psychosocial services; following up on referrals for the coordination of psychosocial services with biomedical cancer care services; and using quality improvement to assure the program’s effectiveness. Specific aims are to: 1) develop the Distress Screening Curriculum and implement it through workshops and eLearning activities to a total of 180 multidisciplinary participants in 90 diverse practice settings in psychosocial cancer care; 2) evaluate the impact of and participants’ satisfaction with the Distress Screening Curriculum on participants’ achievement of their goals and program outcomes; and 3) assess the reach, effectiveness, adoption, implementation, and maintenance (utilizing the RE-AIM model) of this cancer education program on achieving the new quality care standard of using distress screening to ensure the provision of appropriate psychosocial health services for patients in treatment for cancer. To guarantee the widest reach through sustained implementation and maintenance of participants’ screening programs, the Curriculum will be delivered over 24 months. In the Curriculum’s first year, it will include an introductory workshop and quarterly videoconferences, and in the second year, an advanced workshop and semiannual videoconferences. It will be delivered to cohorts of dyads composed of two individuals from the same cancer-care facility who represent different professional practice disciplines, such as chaplaincy, nursing, oncology, psychiatry, psychology, or social work. Assessment will include the program’s reach and effectiveness and participants’ adoption, implementation, and maintenance of distress screening programs. The investigators will partner with the American Psychosocial Oncology Society to implement the training program during the grant period and to sustain it once the grant period has ended. This educational program will improve the delivery of psychosocial health services and significantly advance knowledge of best practices for integrating state-of-the-science psychosocial oncology care with biomedical oncology care across participants’ practice settings.

 
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