Acceptability of a virtual prostate cancer survivorship care model in rural Australia: A multi-methods, single-centre feasibility pilot

Design: A multi-methods, single-centre pilot comprising a quasi-experimental pre-/post-test design and an exploratory qualitative study.

Setting: A rural Australian hospital and health service.

Participants: Men newly diagnosed with localised prostate cancer who were scheduled to undergo, or had undergone, radical or robotic prostatectomy surgery within the previous 3 months.

Intervention: The intervention comprised a 12-week virtual care program delivered via teleconference by a specialist nurse, using a pre-existing connected care platform. The program was tailored to the post-operative recovery journey targeting post-operative care, psychoeducation, problem-solving and goal setting.

Main outcome measures: Primary outcome: program acceptability.

Secondary outcomes: quality of life; prostate cancer-related distress; insomnia severity; fatigue severity; measured at baseline (T1); immediately post-intervention (T2); and 12 weeks post-intervention (T3).

Results: Seventeen participants completed the program. The program intervention showed very high levels (≥4/5) of acceptability, appropriateness and feasibility. At T1, 47% (n = 8) of men reported clinically significant psychological distress, which had significantly decreased by T3 (p = 0.020). There was a significant improvement in urinary irritative/obstructive symptoms (p = 0.030) and a corresponding decrease in urinary function burden (p = 0.005) from T1 to T3.

Conclusions: This pilot has shown that a tailored nurse-led virtual care program, incorporating post-surgical follow-up and integrated low-intensity psychosocial care, is both acceptable to rural participants and feasible in terms of implementation and impact on patient outcomes.