Thursday, 15th November COSA-IPOS Joint Scientific Meeting 2012

Presenters: Michelle Peate and Melanie Ball

The Psycho-Oncology Co-operative Research Group (PoCoG) was established in 2005, in response to a recognised need to develop the capacity and co-ordinated collaboration to conduct large-scale, multi-centre psycho-oncology and supportive care research. PoCoG aims to improve outcomes for people affected by cancer by developing and facilitating high quality, collaborative and clinically relevant research that focuses on interventions and services to optimise psychosocial and supportive care. As part of this aim, PoCoG has developed Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) designed specifically for psycho-oncology research. The SOPs will help both new and experienced researchers to ensure their studies are conducted to the highest standards, ensuring efficiency, ethical compliance, and high quality data. The SOPs, templates and checklists, which include suggested solutions to common barriers and pitfalls researching in the real world context, currently available address: Study Management; Protocol Development; Study Documentation and Data Management; Statistical Analysis Plan Development; and Study Closeout.

• How social determinants impact on access to cancer care in Australia - Carrie Lethborg
• Inequalities in drug access for cancer patients - Dan Mellor
• Inequities in cancer care for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians: where are we and where to next? - Gail Garvey
• Rural oncologists, patients and carers views of equity in rural cancer services and how to improve them - Peter Grimison

The symposium will draw together leaders in psycho-oncology and clinical care in the host country and elsewhere to discuss current gaps in care for people affected by lung cancer and their families; and identify priorities for future research, psycho-social support, care and advocacy. This will include consideration through a series of expert presentations of patterns of clinical care; the effect of stigma and therapeutic nihilism on lung cancer outcomes; models for psycho-social intervention and support.      

• The psychosocial burden of lung cancer - Jimmie Holland
• Detecting distress in lung cancer patients: what works? - Linda Carlson
• Treatment for lung cancer: the clinical perspective - Kwun Fong
• Lung cancer patterns of care and outcomes - Dianne O'Connell

• Dysfunctional beliefs about cancer are associated with the severity and persistence of psychological symptoms during the cancer care trajectory - Caroline Desautels
• Predictors of depression, anxiety and quality of life in patients with prostate cancer receiving androgen deprivation therapy - Kelly Chipperfield
• Arm morbidity and sick leave among working women shortly after breast cancer surgery - Agneta Wennman-Larsen
• Does assessing patients’ expectancies about chemotherapy side effect influence their occurrence? - Ben Colagiuri
• A longitudinal analysis of symptom clusters in cancer patients and their socio-demographic predictors - Amy Waller

(Scientific theme: Survivorship – Psychological Issues)

• A group approach to address the influence of gender-socialization and body consciousness on body image in breast cancer survivors: Experiences from a Randomized Controlled Trial - Mary Jane Esplen
• Social sharing and social support predict psychological adjustment of breast cancer women during treatment: The role of illness perception - Diane Boinon
• Social inequalities in survival after cancer in Denmark: the role of stage at diagnosis, access to treatment and comorbidity - Susanne O Dalton
• Predictors for negative intrusive thoughts after prostate cancer diagnosis - Thordis Thorsteinsdottir
• After treatment: assessing the long-term psychosocial morbidity and its predictors in breast cancer survivors - Yuan Tian

• Anxiety, depression, cancer-specific distress and perceived control in breast cancer women tested for BRCA1/2 mutation: effect of test result and perceived predisposition risk accuracy - Anne Bredart
• Distress and unmet information needs among women with the BRCA 1/2 gene mutation: how are they related? - Ashley Farrelly
• Distress in unaffected women at increased risk of familial breast cancer who delay, decline or remain ineligible for predictive genetic testing - Louise Heiniger
• Next generation prevention of hereditary breast/ovarian cancer: What daughters of mutation carriers know and feel and what they want to know - Andrea Patenaude
• The process and content of telehealth cancer genetic counselling - Elvira Zilliacus

(Scientific theme: Psychometric evaluations)

• Confirmatory factor analysis of a needs assessment tool: Oncology patient distress in Hobart, Tasmania - Camille A Plant
• Anxiety and depression in heterogenous oncology patients, a comparison between a clinical assessment session and the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS) - Annika Thalén-Lindstrom
• A comprehensive methodology for assessing true differences in coping for African American patients with cancer - Thomas V. Merluzzi
• Indicators for evaluating cancer organizations’ support services: associations with patient empowerment - Elizabeth Maunsell
• Measuring psychological adjustment to cancer: confirmatory psychometric analysis of the Mini-MAC in a UK and Australian cancer sample. - Nick Hulbert-Williams

• Training the facilitators for communication skills training of cancer care professionals in Taiwan - Kuan-Yu Chen
• The effectiveness of communication skill training in Taiwan - Woung-Ru Tang
• Development and preliminary evaluation of a novel individualized communication-skills training intervention to improve doctors’ confidence and skills in end-of-life communication - Josephine M Clayton
• Does interprofessional education confer distinct benefits for nurses? Nurse-related outcomes of one IPODE Course.  - Deborah McLeod
• Developing competency in interprofessional collaboration: strategies and outcomes of four years of the IPODE Project - Deborah McLeod

• A study of financial burdens (FB), quality of life and psychological distress among advanced cancer patients (ACP) in phase I trials - Fay J Hlubocky
• International validation of the Distress Thermometer: State of the science - Kristine A. Donovan
• Screening evaluation - a pathway to effective interdisciplinary supportive care - Lynette B Joubert
• Prevalence of mental disorders and psychosocial distress in cancer patients: An epidemiological study - Anja Mehnert
• Centrality of event and cancer-related post-traumatic stress symptoms: an explorative analysis in Danish and Palestinian breast cancer patients - Maja Johannsen

Presented by ASCO, COSA and IPOS, the symposium will draw together leaders in psycho-oncology and clinical care in the host country and elsewhere to discuss current gaps in care for people affect by lung cancer and their families; and identify priorities for future research, psycho-social support, care and advocacy. This will include consideration through a series of expert presentations of patterns of clinical care; the effect of stigma and therapeutic nihilism on lung cancer outcomes; models for psycho-social intervention and support.

• Smoking cessation in lung cancer patients - Jamie Ostroff
• The impact of stigma on the experience of lung cancer - Brian Kelly
• Lung cancer in the media: Stigma, sympathy and stoicism - Jeff Dunn
• Intervening in health-related stigma: potential targets and tensions - Suzanne Chambers

• Efforts in the United States of America to promote improvements in the psychosocial care of patients with cancer - Paul Jacobsen
• A closer look at the current status of the guidelines for the psychosocial care of adults according to cancer nurses in Australia - Catalina Lawsin
• Implementation of screening for unmet psychosocial needs: long-term follow up of screening rates, patient needs, referrals and continued barriers to patient screening. - Sibilah J Breen
• Evaluation of a Canadian web-based education resource to support early integration of psychosocial care across the cancer continuum - Deborah McLeod
• Quality of life assessment in breast cancer women: how does it explain their supportive care needs? - Anne Bredart

• Psychotherapy to reduce dysfunctional fear of progression in cancer patients - Peter Herschbach
• Conquer Fear: The development and pilot testing of a novel psychological treatment for fear of cancer recurrence. - Joanna Fardell
• Treatment of a breast cancer survivor experiencing fear of cancer recurrence - Maree A Grier
• Selective attention and fear of recurrence in breast cancer survivors - Judith B Prins
• Beliefs about medicine & illness are associated with fear of cancer recurrence in women taking adjuvant endocrine therapy for breast cancer - Arden L Corter
• Addressing fear of cancer recurrence: lessons learned from pilot-testing a 6-week cognitive existential group intervention with breast or ovarian cancer patients - Belinda Thewes

• Update on Cognitive-Behaviour Therapy for people with cancer - Stirling Moorey
• Psychiatric aspects of steroid use in cancer care - Catherine Mason
• Depression and cancer: Key issues - David Kissane

Panel: A/Prof Fran Boyle – medical oncologist, Dr Karen Steinke - radiologist, Dr Marie Burke – radiation oncologist, Dr Chris Allen– surgical oncologist, Prof Sunil Lakhani – pathologist, A/Prof Jane Turner- psycho oncologist

• The Human Mammary Tumor Virus - James F. Holland
• The grey zone – what does intermediate risk mean - Fran Boyle
• Occult breast carcinoma - incidental finding following breast reduction - Ben Green

• Predictive and prognostic molecular profiles in adjuvant Colorectal Cancer: Should we be using these routinely in 2012? - Harpreet Wasan
• The psychosocial aspects to having a stoma - Rose Partridge
• The Australian National Bowel Cancer Screening Program - Finlay Macrae
• Multi-centre randomized trial of centralised nurse-led telephone-based care coordination to improve outcomes following surgical resection of colorectal cancer: the ‘CONNECT’ intervention - Jane Young

• Translating the evidence to improve cancer care for Indigenous people - Dianne O'Connell
• One size fits all? The discursive framing of cultural difference in health professional accounts of providing cancer care to Aboriginal people - Christy E Newman
• "I can't do this, it’s too much": Building social inclusion in cancer diagnosis and treatment experiences of Aboriginal people, their carers and health workers - Carla Treloar
• What are the supportive care needs of Indigenous cancer patients in Queensland? - Gail Garvey
• Advanced stage at diagnosis and worse comorbidity explain overall survival disparities between Indigenous and non-Indigenous cancer patients in Queensland - Patricia C Valery
• Closing the information gap: translating the evidence to reduce cancer mortality for Australian Indigenous people  - Rajah Supramaniam

• Unmet supportive care needs of indigenous cancer patients in Queensland: preliminary results of a prospective, longitudinal study - Patricia C Valery
• A structured ten-week exercise intervention is associated with improvements in quality of life, fatigue, and functional status in adolescents and young adults with cancer - Morgan Atkinson
• Patterns of palliative chemotherapy administration in the last 30 days of life. - Nicholas Zdenkowski
• Investigating malnutrition in Victorian cancer services: results from a point prevalence study - Jenelle Loeliger
• Lower levels of serum testosterone, quality of life, and treatment for testicular cancer: a prospective cohort study - Ian Olver
• Reducing disparity in outcomes for immigrants with cancer: a qualitative assessment of the feasibility and acceptability of a culturally targeted telephone-based supportive care intervention - Joanne Shaw

Help us congratulate this year’s IPOS Award winners:
Wendy Lichtenthal PhD and Claire Wakefield PhD, BPsych, MPH  - 2012 Hiroomi Kawano New Investigator Awards (tie)
David Wellisch PhD - 2012 Noemi Fisman Award for Lifetime Clinical Excellence
Darius Razavi MD, PhD - 2012 Bernard Fox Memorial Award (Presented in absentia)
Luigi Grassi MD - 2012 Arthur M. Sutherland Award.

Dr. Grassi will discuss Curing and Caring in Psycho-Oncology in his Arthur M. Sutherland Award Lecture.

The session will also feature the Best Poster Award, and the Dutch Society of Psychosocial Oncology will invite all in attendance to join us in Rotterdam for the 15th World Congress!

• Quam bene vivas refert: Curing and caring in psycho-oncology - Luigi Grassi

Affirmative team: Rosemary Knight, Gabriel Leung and Rob Sanson-Fisher

Negative team: Richard Fielding, Bogda Koczwara and Jamie Ostroff