Self-management support in colorectal cancer care pilot study

Interventions: The intervention involves administration of The Flinders Program at the Wellington Blood & Cancer Centre. Approximately fifty eligible patients diagnosed with colorectal cancer will be randomised into intervention and control groups after completing an initial assessment. Those in the intervention group will be given three cancer coaching sessions with a trained coach over 3-months during regularly scheduled outpatient treatment appointments.
The Flinders Program is a set of generic tools and processes enabling health professionals and health consumers to undertake a structured process that allows for assessment of self-management behaviours, collaborative identification of problems and goal setting leading to the development of individualised care plans (Flinders Human Behaviour & Health Research Unit, 2005).
Each 30-60 minute cancer coaching session involves discussions centred around the person, not the disease. Support provided attempts to encourage collaboration and problem-solving; ideally resulting in increased resilience, information sharing, referral (if appropriate) and care planning.
Primary outcome(s): Self-management competency as measured by the Flinders Partners in Health scale.[Pre- and post-intervention (4-months)]
Study Design: Purpose: Educational / counselling / training; Allocation: Randomised controlled trial; Masking: Open (masking not used);Assignment: Parallel;Type of endpoint: Efficacy