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Prostate Cancer Education Project

The Prostate Cancer Education Project (formerly known as the PSA Project) addresses the training needs of nurses and doctors working in prostate cancer.

Despite EAU guidelines on the medical management of prostate cancer being issued in 2001, there is still no official consensus about nursing management or how to meet the supportive care needs of prostate cancer patients across Europe. There is little research evidence into training needs of nurses and doctors, or amongst men themselves about their expectations and needs for supportive care. PrEP will develop a comprehensive and tailored education programme for dissemination across Europe based on training needs analysis of nurses and doctors and the expressed needs and experiences of patients themselves.

The first phase of research, completed in 2010, surveyed nurses and young oncologists and urologists, On-line surveys in Denmark, France, Ireland, Netherlands, Spain, Turkey and the UK examined working practices, skills, confidence, knowledge and education requirements.

In brief, the data showed nurses to be less confident or skilled in prevention, screening, diagnosis and treatment decision making. Doctors on the other hand felt less confident or skilled in patient support. Over and above good competencies at the treatment phase and multi-disciplinary team working, nurses also saw themselves as performing well in terms of patient support, psychosocial skills and advanced disease. Doctors perceived that they performed well in terms of treatment decision making and communicating with and informing patients. Detailed analysis, including discussion of country differences, will be available after the second phase of the project has been completed.

The second research phase of PrEP was a survey across the same seven countries amongst men who have had a diagnosis of prostate cancer. The survey was available on-line and in paper format in October and November 2011 and top line results will be available in early 2012. The survey will ask about men’s treatment, supportive care needs, quality of life and experiences of care from hospital nurses and doctors.

Invitations to respond to the survey will be disseminated through prostate cancer support groups throughout the countries involved. An EONS member in each county is working as a project manager to promote the survey amongst the patient networks and health professionals who work with patients outside of the clinical settings.

EONS is working on PrEP in collaboration with EAUN, ECCO, EAU, Europa Uomo and Amgen. The research phases have been coordinated and managed by the University of Surrey together with Middlesex University in the UK. The task force for PrEP includes Francoise Charnay-Sonnek, Professor Sara Faithfull, Professor Danny Kelly, Kay Leonard, Bente Thoft Jensen, Louis Denis and Jane Cockle-Hearne.

EONS and their collaborators would like to thank everyone who helped make the nurses’ and doctors’ surveys a success.

The PrEP task force would also like to thank all those involved with prostate cancer for helping to tell men about the availability and importance of the patient survey.