Utility of Educational Video Regarding Lung Cancer Screening
Posted: Wednesday, July 17, 2019
According to a study published in the Annals of the American Thoracic Society, patients considering low-dose computed tomography (CT) lung cancer screening seem to benefit from exposure to a short film that outlines its potential risks and benefits.Sam M. Janes, MBBS, PhD, of the University College London, United Kingdom, and colleagues sought to determine whether provision of a video could facilitate the decision-making process for patients of all educational backgrounds.
In this nested study, as part of the Lung Screen Uptake Trial, 229 patients were randomly assigned to receive either a 10-page information brochure along with a 5-and-a-half-minute video or the information brochure alone. All patients had a history of smoking 30 or more packs per year and had quit smoking up to 15 years ago; had at least a 1.51% 6-year lung cancer risk (defined by the PLCOm2012 model); or had at least a 2.5% 5-year lung cancer risk (defined by the LLPv2 model).
Overall, the objective and subjective knowledge scores improved for both groups: in the brochure-plus-video group, the mean scores increased by 2.16 points and 0.92 points, respectively, versus 1.84 and 0.55 points, in the brochure-alone group. The mean decisional certainty was higher with the brochure plus the video, compared with the brochure alone (8.5 vs. 8.2 out of 9). Both groups ultimately elected to undergo CT lung cancer screening at a similar rate (P = .66).
“The film had a greater impact than the booklet on two aspects of specific knowledge: the significance of radiation exposure from [low-dose] CT and the fact that an ‘unclear’ result (signifying an indeterminate pulmonary nodule) carries a low overall risk of malignancy,” concluded the authors.
Disclosure: The study authors’ disclosure information may be found at atsjournals.org.
