NCT06646614

Group Advanced Care Planning Pilot for Veterans

• Status: Recruiting
• Phase: N/A
• Study type: Interventional
• Enrollment: 50 (estimated)
• Sponsor: VA Palo Alto Health Care System · Federal
• Sex: All
• Age: 18 Years
• Healthy volunteers: Not accepted

Summary

The proposed research aims to engage participants in group educational sessions to facilitate learning of topics related to advanced care planning and to determine whether this approach is more effective than usual care alone.

Detailed description

The purpose of this study is to compare usual care against a group advanced care planning intervention comprised of two sessions led by trained community health workers or health educators from VA Palo Alto. A total of 60 participants will be randomly assigned to either usual care (n=30) or usual care + group advanced care planning intervention (n=30). Those in usual care will be mailed some educational materials about advanced care planning that they may review independently. Those in the group advanced care planning arm will participate in two 60-90 minute educational sessions led by a community health worker/educator that will either be conducted in person on-site, by VA-approved video conference, or a hybrid model. Topics will include an introduction to advanced care planning, goals of care topics, advance directives, and physicians order of life sustaining treatment. Both usual care and the group advanced care planning arms will also participate in pre/post surveys and/or interviews.

Conditions

• Cancer

Interventions

Type	Name	Description
BEHAVIORAL	Group Advance Care Planning Education	Those assigned to the group ACP arm will receive usual care and the intervention which consists of 2 virtual or in-person sessions for a total of 2 hours by a trained community health worker/health educator. Sessions will introduce advanced care planning, help veterans discuss their goals of care with their care teams and learn how to discuss with their families and oncologist, and filing an advanced directive. Participants will be surveyed and interviewed at baseline and again at 8 months post-enrollment.

Timeline

• Start date: 2025-07-15
• Primary completion: 2027-12-01
• Completion: 2027-12-01
• First posted: 2024-10-17
• Last updated: 2026-01-28

Locations

1 site across 1 country: United States