Tailoring the amount of treatment information to cancer patients’ and survivors’ preferences: Effects on patient-reported outcomes

Objectives Tailoring medical information to cancer patients’ needs is recommended, but there is little guidance on how to tailor, and limited research exists about its effects. Tailoring to the amount of preferred information may be easily implementable in clinic and is tested here. Methods A video-vignette experiment was used to systematically vary video patients’ information preferences (limited/extensive) and amount of provided information (additional/no additional). N = 253 cancer patients/survivors evaluated these video-recorded consultations, serving as analogue patients (APs), and completed outcome measures. Results Tailoring information to video patients’ preferences had no effect on APs’ evaluation of the consultation (satisfaction, trust). Yet, there was a main effect of APs’ own information preferences: Those preferring extensive information recalled (MΔ = 5.8%) and recognized (MΔ = 3.5%) more information than those preferring limited information. Moreover, information provision mattered among APs who preferred limited information: They recognized even less if provided with extensive information. Conclusions Tailoring to the amount of video patient’s information preferences did not affect APs’ evaluation of the consultation (satisfaction, trust), while APs’ personal information preferences determined their recall and recognition of medical information. Practice implications Information preferences should be assessed and tailored to in clinical practice. Overwhelming patients/survivors, who prefer limited information, should be prevented