Optimizing Veteran-Centered Prostate Cancer Survivorship Care

Optimizing Veteran-Centered Prostate Cancer Survivorship Care

This study will provide much needed information about how to optimize the quality of care and quality of life of Veterans who are survivors of prostate cancer.

Although there are nearly 150,000 prostate cancer survivors in the VA, there has been little research to understand and improve survivorship care for this large population of Veterans. A substantial proportion of prostate cancer survivors in the general population have significant side effects from treatment (surgery or radiation therapy) that often persist for years, including incontinence, erectile dysfunction, and metabolic syndrome, all of which can contribute to decreased quality of life. The investigators' pilot data suggests that VA prostate cancer survivors experience similar or worse symptom burden to that of the general population of survivors. To address the need to improve patient-centered survivorship care management for Veterans with prostate cancer, the investigators propose a 4 year study with two aims: 1) to conduct a randomized controlled trial to compare a personally tailored automated telephone symptom management intervention for improving symptoms and symptom self-management to usual care. The investigators expect that those in the intervention group will have more confidence in symptom self-management and better symptom self-management and prostate cancer quality of life following the intervention, and that these outcomes will translate to more efficient use of services for these Veterans, and 2) to compare utilization of services among those in the intervention group to those in the control group.

Inclusion Criteria:

• Veteran patient at one of the four study sites (Ann Arbor VA, Cleveland VA, Pittsburgh VA, St. Louis VA)
• History of treatment for prostate cancer treated by surgery, radiation or androgen deprivation therapy between 1-10 years prior to identification

Exclusion Criteria:

• No phone number on file
• Not able to converse on the telephone in English
• Treated for metastatic disease or non-prostate cancer
• Dementia or other significant mental impairment