Accuracy of patient, care partner, and clinician health care contact day recall.

backgroundContact days are increasingly used as a measure of time toxicity, but current measurement approaches (eg, claims data) face limitations. To determine whether participant recall of contact days could serve as a practical approach, we evaluated contact day recall accuracy among patients, care partners, and clinicians across multiple recall windows.

methodsThis single-center cross-sectional survey study enrolled adults with cancer, their informal care partner, and their primary oncologist. Participants were asked to recall the number of patient contact days and associated care burden over the prior 7, 14, 30, and 60-days. Electronic medical record (EMR) data provided gold standard contact day data. The primary outcome was recall accuracy (within ±1, ±2, ±4, and ±8 days of EMR counts across windows).

resultsWe enrolled 42 patients, 29 care partners, and 8 clinicians. Median EMR-derived contact days were 2, 3, 7, and 11 across the 7-, 14-, 30-, and 60-day periods. Accuracy was high for all groups at 7 and 14 days (≥75%) and declined with longer windows. Participant-estimated contact days were moderately correlated with participant-assessed patient burden for patients and clinicians. We did not observe a meaningful correlation between EMR-derived contact days and patient-reported burden.

conclusionA single-item patient (or care partner or clinician)-reported outcome of recalling contact days may be a practical and accurate method of determining recent contact days, particularly over shorter recall periods. The subjective recall of contact days may be more associated with burden than the exact objective contact day number.