Patient satisfaction with nurse-led telephone consultation for the follow-up of patients with prostate cancer

Prostate cancer is being diagnosed earlier and in higher numbers than ever before. The nature of the disease means many patients have to be monitored regularly and for a prolonged period leading to increased pressure on urology outpatient resources and inconvenience for the patient. Here we investigate patient satisfaction with a nurse-led telephone-based follow-up clinic and compare it to satisfaction with traditional outpatient consultations. A Consultation Satisfaction Questionnaire (CSQ) evaluating four domains, namely General Satisfaction (GS), Professional Care (PC), Depth of Relationship (DR) and Perceived Time (PT) was used to assess satisfaction in three groups. Group 1 consisted of 299 patients attending the outpatient department before commencing telephone consultations; Group 2 consisted of 163 men attending outpatients after commencement of the telephone consultations; and Group 3 was the telephone group (234 men). We demonstrated no significant difference in GS or PC between Group 1 and Group 3 or Group 2 and Group 3, although DR and PT was significantly lower in the telephone group compared with Group 1. We also found that waiting times were significantly shorter in the telephone group. In conclusion, telephone follow-up appears to be an acceptable alternative to outpatient follow-up in terms of GS and PC and appears to be more convenient for the patient, although these benefits come at the expense of loss of DR and PT with the clinician.