Evaluation of Patient Satisfaction With and Acceptance of Their Totally-implanted Central Venous Catheter

Overview

Background Patient satisfaction with or acceptance of care assessment is increasingly taken into account in oncology. Most cancer and other critically-ill patients require a totally-implanted Central Venous Catheter (CVC) for their treatment consisting of a reservoir connected to a central venous catheter, which may or may not be valved. It is impossible to estimate the number of CVC used in oncology. However, some authors claim that, in 2005, over 7 million CVCs were placed in the United States in both chronic and acute care. Although many patients fitted with a CVC are able to undertake activities which are hindered with other external vascular access devices, they are often physically or psychologically anxious about their device. To our knowledge, no validated questionnaire measuring patient acceptance of and satisfaction with their CVC has been reported in the literature. Based on these observations, the aim of our study was to develop and to validate a French-language questionnaire dubbed QASICC (Questionnaire for Acceptance of and Satisfaction with Implanted Central Venous Catheter) assessing patient satisfaction with and acceptance of their CVC. QASICC is designed as a multi-dimensional, self-administered questionnaire comprising approximately 30 items related to the use, appearance and pros and cons of the device as well as quality of life as perceived by patients using one for treatment. Objective The purpose of the study is to validate a French-language self-administered questionnaire (QASICC) designed to evaluate patients' satisfaction and acceptance concerning their totally-implanted central venous catheter: confirmatory validation of questionnaire psychometric properties. Study Design This is a prospective, multicenter, open study. Primary Outcome Measures: Questionnaire's 27 items tested on 990 patients to confirm QASICC internal structure: * Items quality * Dimensional structure * Dimensional consistence * Measure accuracy * Measure reliability * Sensitivity to change

QASICC Questionnaire The QASICC questionnaire included 27 questions (Q) assessing seven dimensions: pain during placement or use (Q1, Q2), contribution to the comfort of the treatment (Q3, Q4, Q7, Q10, Q12), esthetics and privacy (Q5, Q6, Q8, Q11, Q17, Q19), the impact on professional activities, social and sports (Q9, Q13, Q14, Q18, Q20), the impact on daily activities (Q15, Q16, Q21, Q22 ), local discomfort (Q23, Q24, Q25, Q26) and overall satisfaction (Q27). The device-related answers were of two types: Likert or visual analogue scale. Four types of Likert response were available: "no", "low," "moderate," "significant,"/"never," "sometimes," "often," "always "/" very easy "," easy "," difficult "," very difficult "/" not at all "," somewhat "," a lot "," extremely ". These questions are scored 0, 33, 67, 100, respectively, when the scores are correlated with symptoms, or 100, 67, 33, 0 when the scores are inversely correlated with symptoms. Visual analog scales (VAS) have a length of 100 mm. The score represents the number of mm measured on the scale. A mean score of acceptance and satisfaction can be calculated on a scale of 0 to 100 for all seven dimensions using the following formula: {(100-score DO) + CO + score (score ES-100) + (100-PR score) + (100-ES score) + (score 100-IN) + SA score} / 7. The higher the overall score, the greater the acceptance and satisfaction The questionnaire is administered to the patient 30 days (+/-7 days) after CVC implantation.