Efficacy of a Proactive Approach to Death Thoughts in People With Advanced Cancer

The aim of this study is to demonstrate the efficacy of a proactive intervention to approach death thoughts among people with advanced cancer compared to usual care (the reactive approach) via a feasible approach with previous indicators of efficacy: Go-TAD (Give the Opportunity to Talk about Death). The benefits of the intervention will be evaluated in terms of: reduction of emotional distress and hopelessness and improvement the doctor-patient relationship, as well as improvement of quality of life for the patient. A Phase II randomized controlled mixed methods clinical trial (RCT) will be carried out within 4 Palliative Care units of tertiary care hospitals in Catalonia. Participants will be persons with advanced cancer defined according to the criteria of the American Society of Clinical Oncology. Participants will be randomly assigned to an intervention group or control group. In the intervention group, the participants will receive a medical visit that will include the 4 open-ended questions comprising the Go-TAD intervention, while the control group will receive usual care. Between 24 and 96 hours later, a researcher from outside the center will assess study outcome measures. To strengthen the study conclusions, a qualitative study will be carried out in which the experiences of the participants in the intervention group and of their professionals who administered the Go-TAD will be explored in depth.

NCT Number	NCT06420609
Lead Sponsor	Universitat Internacional de Catalunya Collaborators: Institut Català d'Oncologia, Hospital Arnau de Vilanova, Fundacion Rioja Salud
Conditions	Death, Advanced Cancer
Enrollment	168 participants
Start Date	2024-05-14
Primary Completion	2025-06 (estimated)
Study Completion	2025-12-21 (estimated)
Updated on ClinicalTrials.gov	2025-04-01