THOR

• Research type

  Research Study

• Full title

  Experience of the thoracoscopic pathway in pleural disease; a qualitative study

• IRAS ID

  354459

• Contact name

  Avinash Aujayeb

• Contact email

  Avinash.aujayeb@northumbria-healthcare.nhs.uk

• Sponsor organisation

  Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust

• Duration of Study in the UK

  1 years, 8 months, 0 days

• Research summary

  The National Optimal Lung Cancer Pathway aims to deliver lung cancer diagnosis in 28 days; however, many services most notably in pleural disease fail to deliver the recommendation. In the investigation of pleural malignancies, the pathway comprises of multiple procedures, and this contributes to significant patient burden . Local anaesthetic thoracoscopy (LAT) offers a physician led service which allow fluid drainage, biopsy of abnormal areas and either placement of an IPC or pleurodesis. All the above procedures take time to organise. Northumbria Healthcare offers LAT with IPC placement for suitable patients as a muti-modality approach to diagnosis and symptom management for potential malignant effusions (MPE). Pleural malignancies and subsequent MPE result in high mortality, symptom burden and increased healthcare costs, patients should be provided with psychological support which is often non-existent. Understanding experiences of the diagnostic pathway for pleural malignancy are therefore invaluable to improve psychologically informed care.
  Patients and their informal carers (i.e., a relative or friend) will be invited to take part in up to two semi-structured interviews during the diagnostic pathway guided by a visual timeline. The semi-structured interviews will focus on the patients experience of their clinical appointments and investigations in the context of psychological health with an aim to improve psychologically informed care. The timeline will be developed during the interviews and will capture patients’ healthcare utilisation including medical appointments and interventions and other significant events that are important to the interviewee. Following the analysis of the first interview, the researcher will map the participants psychological needs onto existing psychologically informed care and identify current gaps, the findings will be further discussed during interview two. We will interview doctors, nurses and other healthcare professionals involved in the management of care for patients undergoing the diagnostic pathway for thoracic malignancy.
  

• REC name

  London - Dulwich Research Ethics Committee

• REC reference

  25/LO/0222

• Date of REC Opinion

  27 Mar 2025

• REC opinion

  Further Information Favourable Opinion