Increased Nurse Involvement in MDTMs: Enhancing Patient-Centred Decision-Making in Cancer Care?

Although multidisciplinary team meetings (MDTMs) play a large role in cancer care and are designed to facilitate multidisciplinary collaboration, nurses are often not actively involved in the discussions. With this paper we aim to to define the determinants that can increase the role of nurses in patient-centred decision-making in MDTMs. A qualitative multiple case study design with cross case comparison was used. Data collection involved 50 structured non-participant observations, 41 semi-structured interviews with participants of 12 different tumour groups and document analysis of policy documents, hospital protocols and information brochures. Three different groups of determinants are distinguished: determinants of current nurse involvement, future nurse involvement and input of psychosocial information in the MDTMs. This study concludes that here is a need for increased involvement of nurses, especially in complex cases.