Breast Cancer Risk Reduction: A Patient-Doctor Intervention
Creators: name: University Of California Office Of The President
Publisher: name: University of California Office of the President
publisherIdentifier: https://ror.org/00dmfq477
publisherIdentifierScheme: ROR
Year: 2024

description: Despite advances in breast cancer research, many women remain unaware of their individual risk, and physicians have been unable to integrate risk assessment and discussion into their routine practices due largely to time constraints. The end result is that breast cancer risk assessment tools, as well as discussion and use of prevention and risk reduction therapies, have been greatly underutilized. Without timely assessments, breast cancer may be detected at a later stage, requiring more invasive treatments, or worse, detected too late for viable treatment.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 During the last decade, health information technology (IT) tools have been shown to promote positive outcomes in patient health and care, providing women with the means to obtain assessments of breast cancer risk and critical breast information in an easy and convenient manner. The goal of this translational project is to evaluate a tablet PC-based breast cancer risk education (BCRE) bilingual English-Spanish intervention in a primary care setting. Two key outcomes will be evaluated: (1) women and physicians in the BCRE intervention group will indicate high rates of satisfaction with the format and content of the intervention, and (2) women in the BCRE intervention group, as compared to those in the control group, will report increased knowledge of risk reduction options, accurate perception of own risk, greater participation in patient-physician discussion of breast cancer risk and recommendations of risk reductions based on patient risk, and more up-to-date mammography screening.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 More specifically, the bilingual intervention will utilize a computerized assessment module located in a primary care clinic. Patients will enter their health information into a tablet PC. From that information, a personalized patient feedback report and a referring physician report will be printed providing a breast cancer risk score and recommendations. It is expected that this information will promote discussion between patients and physicians about individualized breast cancer risk and recommendations. A parallel control module will be similar in time and attention requirements as the BCRE module and will include baseline questions and additional questions on cardiovascular history and lifestyle behaviors of smoking, diet, and exercise during the last month. A patient feedback report will be printed with appropriate recommendations about diet and exercise habits.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Advancing health information technology has great potential in the primary care setting. Primary care physicians play a crucial role in counseling women about their risk of developing breast cancer, referring women to screening, conducting clinical breast exams, promoting healthy lifestyles, discussing risk, and referring appropriate women to high-risk clinics and genetic testing. Our planned breast cancer risk education (BCRE) intervention has the potential to efficiently enhance the delivery of risk-specific breast cancer prevention and detection in the context of primary care, thus ultimately lowering breast cancer incidence, morbidity, and mortality.