Cancer patients' knowledge about their disease and treatment before, during and after treatment: a prospective, longitudinal study

Knowledge about disease and treatment is necessary before patients can consent to treatment. One of the few established instruments for evaluating whether sufficient information has been provided, is the EORTC QLQ-INFO25 questionnaire which was developed to measure how patients perceive information. The aim of this study was to investigate whether cancer patients' level of knowledge about their disease and treatment was associated with their perception of and satisfaction with the information. Breast cancer patients referred for adjuvant chemotherapy and prostate cancer patients referred for curative radiotherapy were included. Level of knowledge about their disease and treatment was measured using study-specific questionnaires. Patients' perception of and satisfaction with the received information was assessed using EORTC QLQ-INFO25. Assessments were done before the first consultation with an oncologist (T1), after the consultation (T2) and 8 weeks after start of treatment (T3). Ninety eight patients were enrolled. Patients with higher education, daily Internet access and in paid employment had the highest baseline knowledge scores. The mean knowledge score increased significantly (T1: 16.4; T2: 20.8; T3: 21.3; p