Implementation of Family Psychosocial Risk Assessment in Pediatric Cancer

The diagnosis and treatment of pediatric cancer adversely affects multiple levels of the social ecology, including patient and caregiver physical and psychosocial health. It is the strong recommendation from the first Standard of the Psychosocial Standards of Care in Pediatric Cancer that cancer centers engage in universal, systematic, psychosocial risk screening for newly diagnosed patients and their families. Universal screening at diagnosis fosters early identification of psychosocial risks and provides the opportunity to match psychosocial care to the level of family need for more equitable, effective and integrated services. However, few programs offer such care in an efficient, comprehensive, and consistent manner, potentially resulting in insufficient care that magnifies inequities in outcomes. To support pediatric cancer centers in their goal of meeting the first Standard of Psychosocial Care, this study will compare two implementation strategies for the Psychosocial Assessment Tool (PAT), a validated parent report screener of family psychosocial risk in English and Spanish, in a cluster randomized trial across 18 pediatric cancer programs in the United States.