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Journal of Undergraduate Research

Keywords

prostate cancer, treatment selection, medical community

College

Family, Home, and Social Sciences

Department

Psychology

Abstract

Although prostate cancer is the most common malignancy affecting males in the western world, the detection and management of this disease has produced intense controversy among researchers and physicians alike. As a result, men who are diagnosed with prostate cancer are forced to select a course of treatment from a confusing list of contradicting reports and limited data. The purpose of this study is to identify those sources of information that post-treatment prostate cancer patients believe were the most helpful to them when making their treatment decision as well as those sources that had the greatest impact on their treatment selection. The instrument that will be used in this study is a carefully constructed patient-preference questionnaire, designed by the researchers, that will focus on the various sources of information that are available to patients with prostate cancer. Men who have received a diagnosis of prostate cancer, and who have already selected a treatment program, will be asked to complete the questionnaire. The information gathered from this effort will then be used to develop educational programs and resources for patients based on those informational sources identified by post-treatment patients as the most influential in their decision making process. In this way, it is hoped that information transfer between doctors and patients will be more efficient and that patients will be more satisfied with the treatment program they select. The results of this study will be submitted to The Journal of Urology, The Journal of Urologic Oncology, Urology and other related periodicals for publication.

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