Quality of life and disease understanding: impact of attending a patient‐centered cancer symposium

To evaluate the impact of a patient‐centered symposium as an educational intervention on a broad population of cancer patients. We developed a comprehensive patient symposium. Through voluntary questionnaires, we studied the impact of this cancer symposium on quality of life, cancer‐specific knowledge, and symptom management among cancer patients. Symposium attendees were provided surveys prior to and 3 months following the educational intervention. Surveys included (1) EORTC‐QLQ‐C30; (2) disease understanding tool developed for this conference; (3) validated disease‐specific questionnaires. Changes over time were assessed using McNemar's tests and paired t‐tests for categorical and continuous variables, respectively. A total of 158 attendees completed the pre‐convention survey. Most respondents reported at least “quite a bit” of understanding regarding treatment options, screening modalities, symptomatology, and cancer‐related side effects. Attendees endorsed the least understanding of disease‐related stress, risk factors, fatigue management, and legal issues related to disease/treatment. At 3 months, there was improvement in understanding (12 of 14 areas of self‐reported knowledge especially regarding nutrition, and stress/fatigue management). However, no significant change was seen in QLQ‐C30 functioning, fatigue, pain, or insomnia. A patient symposium, as an educational intervention improves a solid knowledge base amongst attendees regarding their disease, increases knowledge in symptom management, but may be insufficient to impact QoL as a single intervention. A comprehensive cancer patient‐centered symposium comprised a broad population was surveyed on quality of life, symptoms, and disease‐specific knowledge before and after completed the symposium. This study revealed that a patient symposium, as an educational intervention improves a solid knowledge base amongst attendees regarding their disease, increases knowledge in symptom management, but may be insufficient to impact quality of life as a single intervention.