Addressing Health Literacy With a Tailored Survivorship Care Plan

This clinical trial compares the impact of a tailored survivorship care plan (SCP) to a standard SCP on the understanding of and access to survivorship care in black or African American patients with prostate cancer that has not spread to other parts of the body (localized) or that has spread from where it first started (primary site) to a limited number of places in the body (oligometastatic). SCPs summarize treatment history and recommendations for monitoring and maintaining health, and may also include potential long term effects of treatments received. The intention of a SCP is to help patients participate in their own health care. However, many patients have below basic levels of health literacy, meaning, they have a lower ability to obtain, communicate, process and understand basic health information and services to make health decisions. In fact, poor health literacy has been linked with worse quality of life in prostate cancer survivors. A tailored SCP includes the addition of an educational supplement based on lower reading and writing skills (low literacy) and may address health literacy barriers to understanding of treatment options and side effects. A standard SCP uses a template based on the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) guidelines for prostate cancer. A tailored SCP with low literacy educational supplements may be more effective compared to a standard SCP in improving understanding and access to survivorship care in black or African American patients with localized or oligometastatic prostate cancer.