Evaluation of information provision about fertility sparing treatments for women with breast cancer.

Because survival chances for women with breast cancer are high, quality of life (QOL) after treatment is becoming more important. Infertility, or concerns about fertility, due to the cancer treatment have a negative influence on the QOL. Therefore, interest in possibilities for fertility preservation (FP) has risen. At this moment, options to preserve fertility prior to oncologic treatment in the Netherlands are cryopreservation of in vitro fertilized embryos, oocytes and ovarian tissue, or suppression of the ovaries. Despite an increasing number of studies and guidelines demonstrating the need of discussion of FP issues with young cancer patients, information provision about treatment-induced infertility and FP techniques is not sufficient.

Sufficient and clear information is necessary to enable informed decision making. To support informed decision making and improve information provision, we have developed a web-based Decision Aid (DA) on FP. With the availability of this DA, every patient who is eligible for counseling on FP can obtain optimal counseling at any location in the Netherlands. Aim of this RCT is to evaluate the DA for FP on its effectiveness compared to treatment as usual (TAU) regarding outcomes of decision making and decision making processes.

We expect that the Decision Aid will support patients in deciding about fertiliy preservation prior to their cancer treatment by decreasing decisional conflict.

T0: Baseline (after registration);

T1: 6 weeks;

T2: 6 months;

T3: 1-2 years.

Information provision trough a Webbased decision aid (intervention) about fertility preservation compared to general patient brochures (control) about fertility preservation. The effect of the intervention will be measured by making use of self report questionnaires.



The intervention is a webbased decision aid (website) with information about the consequences of breast cancer treatment on fertility, fertility preservation options, options to fulfill a desire for children when fertility preservation is not possible, background information on normal fertility. Furthermore, the website consists of an explicit value clarification exercise by which patients can deliberate values that are important for them in the decision whether or not to undergo fertility preservation. Subsequently, patients' answers are sorted from most important (as defined by the patient) to least important. No advice is given.
Patients can decide for themselves how much time they spend on the website and what proportion they read, or use.