Abstract A15: How does doctor-patient communication about prostate cancer screening influence African-American patients' decisional conflict around screening decisions?
Authors: Fenstermaker Michael , Hickman Theodore , Gold Heather , Makarov Danil , Loeb Stacy , Cole Helen , Cahn Elizabeth , Ravenell Joseph 
Published: May 2016

Background: Decisional conflict is the state of uncertainty about the course of action to take. The decisional conflict scale measures personal perceptions of uncertainty in choosing options. Because experts in the medical community disagree about whether men should get screened for prostate cancer, the decision to get screened is often less certain than that for other tests. In order to make the best decisions about prostate cancer screening, patients must be well-informed of both the risks and benefits of screening. In this study, we assessed whether talking to a doctor about risks and benefits was associated with decisional conflict.

Methods: A total of 86 African-American men recruited in community-based and faith-based settings completed a baseline survey as part of a prostate cancer education program. The survey incorporated a revised version of the Decisional Conflict Scale. Participants responded “yes”, “unsure” or “no”, and these were scored as 1, 2, and 3 respectively. Scores for each of 10 items were averaged to obtain a decisional conflict score. The survey also included demographic information, questions about participants' experiences with prostate cancer screening, questions about past communication with physicians about screening, knowledge about prostate cancer, and health practices. All responses were self-reported. After the survey, participants took part in an in-depth prostate cancer information session lead by a physician or a community health worker. For this study, analyses were limited to responses from the baseline survey.

Results: The demographics of this sample include African American males of mean age 57.8 (sd 12.4), the majority of whom have at least some college education (72.0%). Most participants completed prostate cancer screening in the past year (57.4%). Half of the men completed a PSA test in the past year (49.4%), and 41% completed DRE. The majority of participants had discussed prostate cancer screening with their doctors (75.6%), and had discussed the benefits of screening with their doctors (67.4%). However, less than half (44.2%) had discussed the risks of prostate cancer screening with their doctors, and even fewer had doctors who informed them that experts disagree about whether men should have a PSA test (26.7%). We found that decisional conflict was negatively associated with having a previous PSA test (β=-0.378, p=0.007), having a doctor who talked with the participant about the benefits of testing (β=-0.424, p=0.002), having a doctor who talked with the participant about the risks of participating (β=-0.392, p=0.001), and with having a doctor who informed them that experts disagree on the need for PSA testing (β=-0.601, p&lt;0.001). No association was found between having a previous DRE and decisional conflict. All associations remained significant after adjusting for age and education.

Conclusions: Well-informed patients experience lower decisional conflict. While few participants discussed risks or the lack of consensus about whether men should be screened with their doctors, we found that discussing the risks and disagreement about testing, in addition to the benefits of testing, were significantly associated with having lower decisional conflict scores compared to those who had not had such conversations with their doctors. In addition, previous PSA testing was associated with lower decisional conflict. These results suggest that, to facilitate better decisions about this controversial topic among black men, doctors should consider more open discussion about prostate cancer screening, and that they include the risks, benefits, and controversies in their conversations with patients.

Citation Format: Michael Fenstermaker, Theodore Hickman, Heather Gold, Danil Makarov, Stacy Loeb, Helen Cole, Elizabeth Cahn, Joseph Ravenell. How does doctor-patient communication about prostate cancer screening influence African-American patients' decisional conflict around screening decisions? [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the Eighth AACR Conference on The Science of Health Disparities in Racial/Ethnic Minorities and the Medically Underserved; Nov 13-16, 2015; Atlanta, GA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev 2016;25(3 Suppl):Abstract nr A15.