Development and application of a clinical vignette to assess the quality of cancer care

Background: In conjunction with a study focusing on the implementation and effect of an integrated care network for cancer patients in the Monteregie region in Quebec, the vignette research strategy was adopted to assess the quality of care provided by the interdisciplinary teams working with this clientele. This research strategy has only recently been used to assess professional practices. This article adopts a resolutely methodological angle in order to describe a rigorous, innovative, transferable experience from the standpoint of the elaboration of a vignette. Methods: We adopted a six-step approach to elaborate the vignette. This vignette includes the description of collaboration with clinicians. The approach assured us of attaining high content validity from the standpoint of facets of its relevance, completeness and intelligibility to respondents. Our clinical vignette describes a sequence of events stemming from the care coordination of a 58-year-old man suffering from rectal cancer. Data were collected through group interviews with the interdisciplinary teams (n=5) under study. The professionals present were asked to describe their usual practices with respect to the events described in the vignette. We adopted two data analysis strategies: (i) a comparison of practices revealed through the interviews with anticipated responses in light of the guidelines of the Programme quebecois de lutte contre le cancer; and (ii) an analysis according to facets of the quality of care. Results: Team professional practices seem to evolve towards the care package valued by the Programme quebecois de lutte contre le cancer. Differences were also observed between the teams from the standpoint of the continuity of care. Conclusion: Our study shows that it is possible to develop a vignette that enables us to understand professional practices in an interdisciplinary context provided that a rigorous approach is adopted. This approach, which can be transferred to the study of similar phenomena, makes it possible to document the care offered and contribute to the renewal of professional practices.