Concordance between General Practitioners and Radiation Oncologists for Cancer Follow-Up Care

Tiffany Sandell, Andrew Miller and Heike Schütze ()
Additional contact information
Tiffany Sandell: Faculty of Science, Medicine and Health, University of Wollongong, Wollongong, NSW 2522, Australia
Andrew Miller: Radiation Oncology Service, Illawarra Shoalhaven Local Health District, Wollongong, NSW 2500, Australia
Heike Schütze: Faculty of Science, Medicine and Health, University of Wollongong, Wollongong, NSW 2522, Australia

IJERPH, 2022, vol. 20, issue 1, 1-10

Abstract: (1) Background: Patients treated with radiotherapy require follow-up care to detect and treat acute and late side effects, and to monitor for recurrence. The increasing demand for follow-up care poses a challenge for specialists and general practitioners. There is a perception that general practitioners do not have the specialised knowledge of treatment side effects and how to manage these. Knowing the concordance between general practitioner and oncologist clinical assessments can improve confidence in healthcare professionals. This study aimed to measure the level of agreement between general practitioners and radiation oncologists using a standardised clinical assessment; (2) Methods: a cross-sectional clinical practice study; sample aim of 20 breast, prostate or colorectal patients, three years post-radiotherapy treatment; their general practitioner and radiation oncologist; (3) Results: There was acceptable percent agreement (>75%) and a moderate to almost perfect agreement (Fleiss kappa) for all variables between the 15 general practitioner-radiation oncologist dyads; (4) Conclusions: The general practitioner and radiation oncologist concordance of a clinical follow-up assessment for radiation oncology patients is an important finding. These results can reassure both general practitioners and oncologists that general practitioners can provide cancer follow-up care. However, further studies are warranted to confirm the findings and improve reassurance for health professionals.

Keywords: cancer; follow-up; general practitioner; shared care; oncologist; concordance; level of agreement (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/20/1/108/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/20/1/108/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:20:y:2022:i:1:p:108-:d:1010814

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().