[Continuity of care in oncology. Quantitative analysis of data from patients treated in two different settings in Emilia--Romagna.]

INTRODUCTION: In order to ensure high-quality treatment for patients with cancer it is vital to implement organisational models (pathways and networks) and that guarantee continuity of care. Appropriate assessment tools that promote the evaluation and analysis of care pathways from the patients' perspective are available. Hence the aim of this study was to verify whether or not the coordination between the various stages and care providers in a cancer treatment pathway is perceived by our patients.

METHODS: Patients being treated for cancer of the lung, breast or colorectal tract by the Ferrara University Hospital (FUH) and the wider Romagna regional health service (RRHS), Italy, were administered the OPTION evaluation questionnaire. Univariate descriptive statistics of patients' sociodemographic features and care pathways were generated, and means and standard deviations were calculated for patient responses to OPTION items 1-19 on continuity of care throughout their treatment pathway.

RESULTS: Responses from 341 patients (37.2 % treated by the FUH and 62.8% by the RRHS) were obtained. All mean scores provided for items 1-19 were above 4 on a Likert scale of 1-5, showing that the patients' perception of the continuity of their care was very positive on the whole. The highest mean scores were given for items regarding their emotional experience, while the lowest were given for those regarding information and integration with the GPs.

DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS: Organisational efforts to promote patient-centred continuity of oncological care improved the experience of patients in our sample. Our data suggest that integration with the GPs still remains a problem, both from an organisational standpoint and in the perception of the patient being treated for cancer at one of the facilities under investigation. Although our findings are non-controlled and not generalisable to other geographical areas, they do show how such tools can be used to monitor and analyse patient's experience with continuity of care with a view to continual improvement in care provision.