Treatment patterns and out-of-hospital healthcare resource utilisation
illness, Cancer
CANCER
The Stop Cancer PAIN Trial database was linked to routinely collected out of hospital services (Medicare Benefits Schedule) and medication data (Pharmaceutical Benefits Schedule) to explore treatment patterns and estimate healthcare resource utilisation. Ethics approval was granted by the South Western Sydney Local Health District Human Research Ethics Committee (HREC)–ethics approval number HREC/14/LPOOL/479 and the data custodian, the Australian Department of Human Services External Request Evaluation Committee (MI4457). Study participants provided written informed consent for access to these data.Approval was granted by the HREC for an opt-out procedure to contact patients at week one as well as a procedure to obtain informed verbal (rather than written) consent to participate. Verbal consent was considered to place less burden on patients who, due to their illness, might be less able to return written consent forms by mail.