Associate Dean for Clinical Innovation and EBP Rutgers University - Camden Nursing Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States
Introduction: Studies have shown that myeloma treatment decision preferences and risk tolerance vary between patients, with preference patterns differing by certain patient characteristics.
Methods: We conducted a secondary analysis of our database on preferences for cure and survival and examined sociodemographic features that are correlated with higher level of preference for cure and survival among patients with symptomatic myeloma. One hundred seventy-four (N = 174) patients diagnosed with MM within the network of International Myeloma Foundation online patient support groups across the United States were included in this secondary data analysis.
Results: The sample is homogeneous in terms of race (mostly white) and marital status (most were partnered or married), which precluded these factors from the analysis. We hypothesized that younger age, higher income, and higher education level will be strong factors for higher preference for cure and overall survival based on preliminary findings from a prior study. We created dichotomous groupings for age, income, and educational level to gain statistical power to detect differences between two groups. The grand mean scale score for the entire sample was 7.47 (SD=1.83). The adjusted score of the less than bachelor’s degree group was 8.26 (95% CI = 7.58–8.94) while the adjusted score for the bachelor’s degree or higher was 7.28 (95% CI = 6.94–7.61). We found that this difference is substantial given the difference between groups is more than half of a standard deviation difference in terms of the outcome, and the less educated group is .43 SD above the grand mean. Post-hoc tests showed neither of these adjusted scores is statistically significant from the grand mean but there is a significant association between less than bachelor’s education level and higher cure/survival preferences scores (p=0.01).
Conclusions: A bachelor’s degree and higher were more likely to score lower on the 5-item scale than their less educated counterparts. Age and income were found to have no impact on cure and survival preferences. These novel findings merit additional research to strengthen their generalizability.
