{"doi":"10.52519/aceqi.25.1.1.a2","title":"In-Person and Virtual Adaptation of an Interprofessional Palliative Care Communications Skills Training Course for Pediatric Oncology Clinicians","abstract":"Introduction Empathic communication is crucial for clinicians when discussing palliative and end-of-life (PC/EOL) care with parents of children with cancer. Unfortunately, many parents report inadequate communication at these distressing times. This study evaluates the communication skills training (CST) clinicians received to deliver a PC/EOL communication intervention as part of a multi-site randomized-controlled trial (RCT). Training was provided using an in-person format and then adapted to a virtual platform to accommodate remote learners. Methods Clinicians were trained in dyads (one physician and one nurse [RN] or advanced practice provider [APP]) over 3 days (in-person or virtually). Four pediatric oncology cases were developed and each incorporated three timepoints: diagnosis, disease progression, and end-of life. Training was adapted from VitalTalkTM and included didactic instruction, videos, visual aids, and role play. Participants completed a confidential, post-training survey. A self-reported quality assurance checklist measured fidelity to the intervention during the RCT. Results Thirty clinicians completed training; 26 completed post-training surveys including 46.1% physicians, 30.8% RNs and 23.1% APPs. Most were female (65.4%); white (80.8%), and 40-50 years old (53.9%). Nine (34.6%) trained in-person; the rest trained virtually. Ninety-two percent reported the course was valuable/very valuable for developing PC/EOL communication skills and 96% learned something new. Dyads trained virtually had similar fidelity to those trained in-person (95% and 90% respectively) when delivering the intervention to parents. Discussion This PC/EOL CST, implemented in-person and virtually, was valuable for improving pediatric oncology clinicians’ communication skills and was translated effectively into practice.","journal":"Advances in Cancer Education and Quality Improvement","year":2025,"id":565360,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":0,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9605,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2025-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":442137,"name":"Clark R. Andersen","orcid":"0000-0003-1846-9117","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":369070,"name":"Robert M. Arnold","orcid":"0000-0003-1610-8932","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":417837,"name":"Julie A. Bradley","orcid":"0000-0001-7581-4605","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1231294,"name":"Allie Carter","orcid":"0000-0001-5776-8211","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1006191,"name":"Lauren Draper","orcid":null,"position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":760551,"name":"Timothy Garrington","orcid":"0000-0002-8843-8343","position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":475720,"name":"Jonathan Gill","orcid":"0000-0001-7796-8632","position":7,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":736306,"name":"Douglas J. Harrison","orcid":"0000-0002-6776-4852","position":8,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":329711,"name":"Masanori Hayashi","orcid":"0000-0002-9508-0159","position":9,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1449108,"name":"A. Heaton","orcid":"0009-0009-1695-6983","position":10,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1169769,"name":"Cynthia Holladay","orcid":"0009-0001-5332-6499","position":11,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1008268,"name":"Alex Lion","orcid":"0000-0001-6548-0234","position":12,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1170279,"name":"Alakh Rajan","orcid":null,"position":13,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1170280,"name":"Beatriz Rozo","orcid":null,"position":14,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":431929,"name":"Daniel V. Runco","orcid":"0000-0002-1018-9914","position":15,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":766260,"name":"Shermini Saini","orcid":null,"position":16,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1170281,"name":"Laura Salvador","orcid":null,"position":17,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":387524,"name":"Kathryn S. Sutton","orcid":"0000-0002-6451-6589","position":18,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":450754,"name":"Verna L. Hendricks‐Ferguson","orcid":"0000-0002-4867-5758","position":19,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":450753,"name":"Karen Moody","orcid":"0000-0003-4168-2864","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":0,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-19T02:56:28.709936Z","pmid":"41268449","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}