A study looking at the impact of training doctors in how to respond to a patient questionnaire about quality of life (QuEST-T2)

The researchers found that a training session helped doctors to use the information provided in the new questionnaires.

The study involved 3 doctors and 60 patients who had breast cancer, bowel cancer or gynaecological cancers.

Before having an appointment with the doctor to talk about chemotherapy, the patients filled in a questionnaire using a touch screen computer. It included questions about symptoms and how they were feeling, as well as asking about their social and family life. The doctor was given information from the questionnaire to look at during the appointment.

After seeing 10 patients who had filled in these questionnaires, the doctors had a training session that lasted 3 to 4 hours. They then had appointments with 10 more patients who had filled in the questionnaires.

Audio recordings were made of the appointments so that the study team could see how the doctors were using information from the questionnaires both before and after the training session.

From listening to the recordings, the researchers suggest that after the training session, there was more discussion about issues such as pain.

The researchers concluded that a short training programme can help doctors to interpret and act on the information gathered in questionnaires filled in by patients.

We have based this summary on information from the team who ran the study. The information they sent us has been reviewed by independent specialists (peer reviewed ) and published in a medical journal. The figures we quote above were provided by the study team. We have not analysed the data ourselves.