EPOC

EPOC

About the project

Title: EPOC: Patient-centred decision making in malignant bowel obstruction to optimise survival and quality of life: the right treatment at the right time
Funder: Yorkshire Cancer Research
Time frame: Ongoing
Contact for more details: Professor Miriam Johnson and Dr Alison Bravington

About one in six people with cancer experience blockage of their intestines by tumour (malignant bowel obstruction). Making decisions about treatment can be difficult as there are no nationally agreed guidelines.

We will review existing evidence and feed the results into an interview study with patients, caregivers and clinicians to explore how best to make treatment decisions together.

We will develop a patient ‘Decision Aid’ and on-line clinical training to ensure best treatment for individual patients. Each stage will involve consultation with patient, caregiver and clinician focus groups.

Interviews for this study will be carried out using visual methods - further details about The Pictor technique are below.

Visual methods in research interviews: The Pictor technique 

Creating a simple diagram in an interview can sometimes make it easier to talk to a researcher about your experiences.

If you decide to take part in an interview using the Pictor technique, you will be asked use a set of sticky arrows to represent the people involved in an experience with you – for example, if the research study is about health or social care, arrows can be used to represent patients, caregivers and health and social care services.

To see how the technique works, watch this short video, in which a researcher uses Pictor to talk to someone about their experiences of cancer treatment.