Adapting a Palliative Care Literacy Intervention for Use in Israel (GP787)

Objectives Describe growth of palliative care in Israel and the need to increased palliative care literacy among patients and family caregivers. Describe the process of adapting the Managing Cancer Care intervention for use in Israel. Summarize recommended expert panel, patient, and family caregiver edits to the Managing Cancer Care intervention. Importance. Although palliative care (PC) is growing in Israel, few receive PC due to lack of knowledge and availability of services. Increased PC literacy and use is needed to improve health outcomes. Objective(s). Adapt a PC-focused cancer self-management intervention to improve PC literacy and use in Israel. Method(s). Managing Cancer Care (MCC) consists of two interventions, MCC-PTfor patients and MCCCGfor family caregivers. Both have improved knowledge of PC and its integration into cancer self-management among users in Connecticut. To adapt MCC for use in Israel, we professionally translated MCC from English to Hebrew. An expert panel of Israeli clinicians (n¼3) edited modules for cultural relevance. We conducted cognitive interviews with patients and family caregivers at an oncology center in northern Israel to inform further edits. Inclusion criteria were patients and family caregivers managing Stage III/IV breast cancer, aged 18+, Hebrew- or English-speaking, and receiving any type of treatment. Participants provided demographic/clinical information and received the appropriate version of MCC. Interviews on intervention content and format occurred 2-4 weeks later. We analyzed interview data using content analysis. Results. Following expert review, we revised MCC content specific to the U.S. health care system (e.g., hospice benefit) and American culture/language (e.g., no Hebrew word for ''multidisciplinary''). Patients' (n¼13) mean age was 49 (range 36-69). 85% had Stage IV disease with an average 6 years since diagnosis. Caregivers' (n¼10) mean age was 57 (range 47-66) with 60% male. 23% of patients and 30% of caregivers correctly defined PC. 30% of patients had seen a PC physician. MCC was reported by patients and caregivers as topically relevant (80%,70%), attractive (70%,80%), and culturally appropriate, and suggested more Israel-specific content on PC resources. Conclusion(s). MCC appears acceptable to Israeli users and warrants pilot-testing. Impact. PC infrastructure in Israel may grow in response to increased PC literacy and requests for PC. We are collaborating with Israel's Ministry of Health to further study objectives.