gms | German Medical Science

About 30% of all tumor patients suffer so much from psychosocial distress, that they need psycho-oncological treatment. Clinical experiences indicate, that the percentage is even higher among the patients treated with radiotherapy (33% - 42%). The fear of x-rays and the fear of possible side effects play a major role in this context. One very important object of research with great relevance related to practice is the question, how to identify those patients in daily routine, which are highly distressed and need psychological support. The fact, that not all patients can be seen and be interviewed in times of limited capabilities, adds to the importance of this question. Therefore an economic way to identify these needy patients has to be found. The most frequently tried procedure is the use of Questionnaires. Unfortunately the dealing out of the questionnaires, the input and the analysis of the data take very much time and require a great organisational effort. To solve these problems, a computer based technology is tested: a questionnaire specific for radiotherapy-patients (SIRO) is programmed for a tablet-PC and every patient answers the questionnaire on the screen, by touching the screen with a special pen. The questionnaires outcome can be viewed immediately and the score of a patient is displayed in comparison to a critical cut-off-score, which shows the need for psychoonocological support. This screening procedure should be evaluated as an acceptable, efficient method and the use of such routine patient interrogations should have the potential to improve the care for the patients’ quality of life. The aim of this study is to test the feasibility and the utility of the described procedure during daily routine. First the patients’ psychological distress and satisfaction with radiotherapy will be measured (FPZ, ZU-F-8, SIRO, HADS; n = 244), second the pen-and-paper-version and the tablet-PC-version of the SIRO are validated and the critical cut-off-score is fixed (HADS, both SIRO-Versions, PO-BADO; n = 160) and finally the screening procedure is tested and judged in daily routine (SIRO; n = 244 patients plus 40 colleagues from two university hospitals in Munich).