Using Shared Medical Appointments for Delivering Patient-Centered Care to Cancer Survivors: A Feist-Weiller Cancer Center Pilot Study

Abstract

Background: Shared medical appointments (SMAs) have shown promise in the care of patients with conditions such as diabetes; however, the impact of lifestyle medicine-based SMAs on the overall health status of cancer survivors remains poorly understood. Materials and Methods: This cross-sectional survey of patients was conducted to study the impact of a unique lifestyle medicine-based survivorship program on cancer survivors. Results: A total of 64 patients were telephonically contacted for the survey, out of which 39 (60.9%) patients responded. All patients (39 of 39, 100%) found the program to be helpful in some way; 26 patients (66.7%) found SMAs to be significantly helpful, while 13 patients (33.3%) found SMAs as only somewhat helpful. The majority noted feeling a great sense of support (35 of 39, 89.7%), followed by improvement in appetite (21 of 39, 54%) and improvement in pain (14 of 39, 35.9%). All patients reported at least some improvement in subjective well-being (SWB); patients who attended >3 appointments reported significant/very significant improvement in SWB (P =.03). Conclusion: SMAs offer promise in the effective delivery of lifestyle medicine-focused care to cancer survivors. Further prospective studies are needed to validate these findings.