Analysis

Among Boltong et al’s²³ four CIS themes, we treated three themes (experience of using CIS, impact and an adjunct to cancer treatment) as outcome-focused elements. In addition, we employed overall satisfaction for comparison with the distribution of previous studies. Boltong et al’s²³ drivers for access were treated as independent variables. These variables included experience of using CIS, immediate access and topics to talk about at the CISC.

The relationships among demographic characteristics (age and sex), previous experience of using CISC, immediate access, topics to discuss in the consultation and evaluation of the CISC were examined by logistic analysis. Since the distribution of the evaluation items tended toward ‘strongly agree’, to avoid the ceiling effect, binary variables were defined as ‘people who answered ‘strongly agree’ to all the items of a dimension’ and ‘others’.

Logistic regression was used to examine the relationship between previous experience using CISC and immediate access after controlling for demographic characteristics, such as sex and age. Further analysis was conducted for each topic discussed with cancer information specialists independently after controlling for demographic variables and previous experience using CIS and immediate access. Cases with missing variables were excluded from each analysis.