Impact of Mortality Salience on Treatment Decisions

NCT06545188 | Completed DMC

• 1 other identifier: GFFU Heigl Foundation 82301
• Study Type: interventional
• Target: 746
• Locations: 1 country
• Sites: 1

Brief Summary

The goal of this clinical trial is to learn if mortality salience has an impact on treatment decisions in urologists and patients with urological cancer. The main questions it aims to answer are: Does mortality salience lead to more aggressive treatment decisions in a) urologists and b) patients with urological cancer? Which factors predict more aggressive treatment decisions a) in urologists and b) in patients with urological cancer? Is the Fear of cancer recurrence-1 (FCR-1) in German language a valid screening tool for fear of cancer progression in patients with urological cancer? Researchers will compare a mortality salience trigger to control questions to see if mortality salience leads to more aggressive treatment decisions. Participants will: Answer the Mortality Attitudes Personality survey (MAPS) to trigger mortality salience and, in three borderline case vignettes, provide information on how likely they would be to choose a more aggressive therapy.

Conditions

Urological Cancer

Keywords

urological cancer; mortality salience; fear of death; psycho-oncology; decision making; death anxiety

Outcome Measures

Primary Outcomes (1)

• treatment decision

  Question about how likely the subject would opt for the more aggressive of two possible therapies on a Likert scale from 0 = very unlikely to 10 = very likely.

  Day 0

Secondary Outcomes (16)

• Operationalised Psychodynamic Diagnosis (OPD) structure questionnaire, OPD-SQ (Ehrenthal et al., 2015)

  Day 0

• Relationships-Revised Questionnaire, ECR-RD8 (Ehrenthal et al., 2021)

  Day 0

• Meaning in Life Questionnaire, MLQ (Steger et al., 2006)

  Day 0

• Peace of Mind Scale, POMS (Lee et al., 2013)

  Day 0

• Death Attitude Profile - Revised, DAP-GR

  Day 0

Study Arms (2)

Mortality salience trigger

EXPERIMENTAL

Mortality Attitudes Personality Survey (MAPS, Rosenblatt et al. 1998) will be administered (two open questions about death and mortality)

Other: Mortality Attitudes Personality Survey

Dental pain questions (control condition)

OTHER

Two open questions about a dental treatment will be administered

Other: Dental treatment questions (control condition)

Interventions

Mortality Attitudes Personality Survey OTHER

Two open questions about death and mortality will bei administered to trigger mortality salience

Mortality salience trigger

Dental treatment questions (control condition) OTHER

Two open questions about a dental treatment (control condition)

Dental pain questions (control condition)

Eligibility Criteria

• Age: 18 Years+
• Sex: all
• Healthy Volunteers: No
• Age Groups: Adult (18-64), Older Adult (65+)

You may qualify if:

• sufficient cognitive ability
• German language skills

You may not qualify if:

• none
• Study 2) Patients
• urological cancer (ICD-10: C60, C61, C62, C63, C64, C65, C66, C67, C68)
• age at least 18 years
• German language skills
• sufficient cognitive ability
• capacity to consent
• none

Sponsors & Collaborators

• Heinrich-Heine University, Duesseldorf: lead
• UHN - Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, Toronto, Canada: collaborator

Study Sites (1)

University Hospital Düsseldorf, Department of Urology

Düsseldorf, 40225, Germany

Location

MeSH Terms

Conditions

Urologic Neoplasms; Necrophobia

Condition Hierarchy (Ancestors)

Urogenital Neoplasms; Neoplasms by Site; Neoplasms; Female Urogenital Diseases; Female Urogenital Diseases and Pregnancy Complications; Urogenital Diseases; Male Urogenital Diseases; Urologic Diseases

Study Officials

• Dominik Fugmann, Dr. med.

  Heinrich Heine University Duesseldorf, Germany

  PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR

Study Design

• Study Type: interventional
• Phase: not applicable
• Allocation: RANDOMIZED
• Masking: SINGLE
• Who Masked: INVESTIGATOR
• Purpose: TREATMENT
• Intervention Model: PARALLEL
• Sponsor Type: OTHER
• Responsible Party: SPONSOR

Model Details: Study 1) Urologists: RCT; two arms - Intervention group \& control group Study 2) Patients with urological cancer: RCT; two arms - Intervention group \& control group

Study Record Dates

• First Submitted: July 15, 2024
• First Posted: August 9, 2024
• Study Start: September 16, 2024
• Primary Completion: November 8, 2025
• Study Completion: November 8, 2025
• Last Updated: November 24, 2025

Record last verified: 2025-02

Data Sharing

• IPD Sharing: Will not share

Locations

DE (1)