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Education Committee
The APCC Education Committee
The education committee of the APCC was established to address needs in the areas of community, patient and professional education for prostate cancer in Australia. Founding members of the Committee in 1998 were Associate Professor Kerry Kirke, Associate Professor David Weller and Dr Carole Pinnock. Membership now includes representatives from each of the state Cancer Councils, the Prostate Cancer Foundation of Australia and The Cancer Council Australia. The Committee has in addition developed collaborative activities with the Australian Cancer Network and Andrology Australia.
Lions Australian Prostate Cancer website: http://www.prostatehealth.org.au
After its inception in 1999, the committee surveyed prostate cancer support groups with the then ‘Association of Prostate Cancer Support Groups’ to find what type of information men with prostate cancer would find helpful on a website. The resulting website was funded by Lions Clubs of Australia and contained information on prostate cancer treatment, news items, where to find help, support and resources on prostate cancer and an email helpline with posted questions and answers. The website won a Public Health Association Award in 2001 and activity has grown from 50,000 hits per month in July 2000 to 320,000 in May 2006. The use patterns of the site were evaluated and published in 2003 [1], revealing usage closely mirrored the areas of need expressed in the original survey.
Consumer Guide to Localised Prostate Cancer
Men deciding on treatment for localised prostate cancer face a difficult task because of uncertainty about which treatments are best. The consequences of this choice may result in symptoms such as incontinence, impotence and bowel symptoms. The need for high quality information and support to decide which treatment is best for each individual is very high. Consequently the Committee produced a consumer version of the National Health and Medical Research Council’s (NHMRC) ‘Evidence-based recommendations for the management of localised prostate cancer’. The Consumer Guide was available at no cost through The Cancer Council Australia’s national Cancer Helpline and could be downloaded from the Lions website. The demand was very high with 14,000 copies requested in the first six months, and the print run of 23,000 exhausted in 12 months. Consequently a second edition was produced in 2003, sponsored by Andrology Australia.
Call-in
A national call-in using the Cancer Council’s Helpline 13 11 20 has been held annually since the Committee’s inception. The phones are manned by a mixture of prostate cancer doctors, nurses and Helpline staff. These call-ins are promoted nationally and have been very successful in providing men with a chance to ask questions directly. More than 80 per cent of callers are men, whereas with normal use of the Helpline, this gender balance is reversed.
Support group study
Little is known about the extent and activities of peer support groups in Australia, and the group has undertaken a three phase study of the extent of peer support, individual responses and urologists’ attitudes to it. Peer support under the umbrella of the Prostate Cancer Foundation of Australia (PCFA) is extensive, with 44 groups and more than 3300 members at the time of survey (2001). The study found high levels of satisfaction with support, with benefits from support being strongly linked to physicians’ support for group participation. The third phase has been recently completed and examines predictors of physician support for men attending support groups.
Supporting GPs providing informed choice for PSA testing
The decision to use the Prostate-Specific Antigen (PSA) test or not to test for prostate cancer is a difficult one. Prostate cancer screening is not recommended by most medical authorities, nevertheless all agree men should make their own decision after being fully informed of the risks and benefits. This task usually falls to the GP who faces many barriers: time constraints, complexity of the issues, medico-legal obligations and so on. The APCC education committee held a symposium on providing informed choice for prostate cancer testing in general practice [4]. A highly popular show card which guides GPs through the discussion with the patient and gives information about interpreting an elevated PSA result was developed and can be accessed on this website - view PSA pdf here.
Advanced Prostate Cancer Guidelines
Following the success of the Consumer Guide to Localised Prostate Cancer, the Prostate Cancer Foundation of Australia (PCFA) members asked for a similar guide for advanced prostate cancer. The Australian Cancer Network has taken on the task of producing evidence-based clinical practice guidelines, and the APCC education group will develop a consumer guide based on this.
The APCC education committee is committed to providing men and their families with better information and support about prostate cancer at all stages of the condition. We receive project funding for joint activities and provide in-kind support to our individual members in achieving this goal. We believe every person concerned or affected by prostate cancer in Australia deserves the opportunity to fully understand this complex disease.
Dr Carole Pinnock and Dr Suzanne Steginga,
Co-Chairs, Education Committee, June 2006
APCC Education Committee: Publications
1. Pinnock, C. and C. Jones, Meeting the information needs of Australian men with prostate cancer by way of the internet. Urology, 2003. 61(6): p. 1198-203.
2. Steginga, S., et al., Peer support groups for prostate cancer in Australia: a snapshot in 2002. Cancer Forum, 2002. 26(3): p. 169-172.
3. Steginga, S.K., et al., Evaluating peer support for prostate cancer: the Prostate Cancer Peer Support Inventory. BJU International, 2005. 95(1): p. 46-50.
4. Pinnock, C., PSA testing in General Practice: can we do more now? Med J Aust, 2004. 180(8): p. 379-81.
5. Baade, P.D., et al., Communicating prostate cancer risk: what should we be telling our patients? Medical Journal of Australia, 2005. 182(9): p. 472-5.
6. Steginga, S.K., et al., An educational workshop on the early detection of prostate cancer--a before-after evaluation. Australian Family Physician, 2005. 34(10): p. 889-91.
7. McAvoy, B., S. Steginga, and C. Pinnock, The early detection of prostate cancer in general practice: supporting patient choice. N Z Fam Phys, 2006. 33(1): p. 49-57.
8. Steginga, S.K., et al., Shared Decision-making and informed choice for the early detection of prostate cancer in primary care. BJU Int, 2005. 96: p. 1209-10.
9. Metcalfe, R., et al., Promoting shared decision-making and informed choice for the early detection of prostate cancer: development and evaluation of a GP education program. Cancer Forum, 2006. 30(1): p. 38-42.