Objectives: Despite similar rates in cancer morbidity, patients with comorbid significant mental health difficulties (SMHD) experience higher mortality rates. This population has largely been neglected in cancer care research. Little is known about how to improve cancer outcomes for patients with SMHD. The aim of this research is to explore the views of healthcare professionals concerning the provision of cancer care to individuals with SMHD in an Irish context.Methods: Semi-structured interviews were conducted with healthcare professionals (n = 28) providing care to people with SMHD and cancer. This included oncology and psychiatry consultants (n = 10); clinical nurse specialists (n = 8); clinical psychologists (n = 6); and medical social workers (n = 4). Data were analysed using thematic analysis.Results: Four overarching themes were generated from the data highlighting the challenges associated with healthcare provision for this cohort. The themes were:Fragmentation of Care, Healthcare Providers' Understanding of SMHD, Complex Nature of Presentation, and Specialised Care Needs.
Conclusions:The findings contribute to advancing our understanding of cancer care provision for patients with SMHD. They identify important barriers and facilitators to cancer care provision for this population from the perspective of healthcare professionals in Ireland. These findings will help to shape future research and contribute to improving the quality-of-care for people with SMHD and cancer.
K E Y W O R D Scancer, cancer care, health inequities, medical oncology, mental health, mental illness, oncology, psychiatry, psycho-oncology, quality of health care 1 | BACKGROUND Individuals with significant mental health difficulties (SMHD), including schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and major depressive disorder, experience additional challenges in receipt of healthcare. [1][2][3] Irrespective of factors such as individuals' lifestyle and the risks that long-term use of psychiatric medications pose to health, 4 individuals with SMHD have poorer physical health compared to the general population and experience higher mortality rates. 5,6 Indeed, almost half of all chronic medical conditions go undiagnosed in individuals with SMHD. [7][8][9] This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Highlights
Novel liquid glue fiducials consisting of a radiographic contrast agent and tissue glue.
The first demonstration of visible liquid ethiodized oil tissue glue fiducials being delivered into a fluid-filled bladder.
Ex vivo Pigs bladder and Pig pelvis to demonstrate the deliverability of visible discrete fiducials into a fluid-filled bladder.
Utilization of clinical tools to analyze CT number voxel histograms to characterize the glue fiducials and artifact and compare them to gold fiducial markers in a 3-dimensional manner.
Ethiodized oil glue fiducials have online visualization qualities comparable to gold fiducials without the associated metal related artifact.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.