Purpose: The completion of a screening tool is an important first step in integrating psychosocial care across the cancer continuum. However, in order for screening to make a difference in patient/family experience, screening needs to be followed with skilled supportive care. This education project was designed to address the learning needs associated with implementing a screening for distress program for nurses and other health professionals.

Method: CAPO’s Interprofessional Psychosocial Oncology Distance Education (IPODE) Project, with support from the Canadian Partnership Against Cancer, created a web-based education program to support the national screening for distress agenda. The final education program was designed for 5-6 hours of independent study. The program supports clinically grounded and interactive learning through the use of PowerPoint presentations, video clips of clinical interactions with patients and family members, and test questions. Presentation topics include, for example, strategies for dealing with screening results, managing referrals, and supportive counselling. Pre and post course surveys were designed to assess satisfaction and confidence in addressing such things as assessing and responding to distress and providing supportive counselling.

Results: Outcome data from more than 400 course users suggest that satisfaction with the course is very high and uptake is good. An analysis of a smaller number of pre/post matched-pairs surveys show statistically significant increases in confidence on all items. Course users identified the videos as the highly valuable, allowing them to envision possibilities for integrating screening and brief first line supportive care into busy clinical practices.

Conclusion: Our ongoing experience with the IPODE project suggests that health care professionals value web-based learning for its accessibility and convenience. Realistic videos of clinical practice are highly valued as a learning tool. Independent, web-based learning appears to offer excellent opportunities for cost-effective education that supports practice change that allows better integration of psychosocial care. 

This abstract is planned as part of the symposium entitled, "Integration of Psychosocial Support Throughout Cancer Care: Perspectives from Around the Globe"