Survivors of breast cancer: patient perspectives on survivorship care planning

Abstract

Results provide direction for designing key content and format of SCP and also provide information about elements of care planning that should be customized to individual patient needs.

Breast Cancer Survivorship and South Asian Women: Understanding about the Follow-Up Care Plan and Perspectives and Preferences for Information Post Treatment

“…Challenges with respect to the making of recommendations for survivorship care planning, limited health care resources, and a large bcs population necessitate an efficient means of assessing individual needs and preferences for different ages and different groups of survivors 6,16 .…”

“…Furthermore, other studies have reported the use of religion as a coping strategy by sa cancer patients in India [36][37][38][39] and by patients diagnosed with depression in England 38 . Women of other ethnicities have also reported that spirituality and prayer provided them with inner strength to live through the cancer journey 6,11,23,39 .…”

“…The richness of these women's experiential stories of breast cancer, captured in their own language-Punjabi, Hindi, and Urdu, with or without English-defines the "cultural identity" that affects a sa bcs's grasp of the meaning of illness across varying age groups, migration statuses, acculturation, education, socioeconomic statuses, and other cultural factors 15,37 . Although participants touched on universal themes of uncertainty and fear of recurrence, depression, fatigue, and reproductive issues, they did not share experiences of "I am going to battle" or "I am going to overcome" cancer as did bcss in another study 6 . It is therefore important to understand that the sa bcs's lens maybe coloured by an Eastern spiritual influence in which the "self' may be different from the Western concept of "self."…”

“…Currently, approximately 825,000 cancer survivors live in Canada (2.5% of the population) 1 , and more than 2.5 million breast cancer survivors (bcss), in the United States 2 . Because of the growing recognition of cancer survivorship as a distinct phase in the cancer trajectory, development of efficient and effective strategies or care plans for the organized transitioning of patients from active treatment at a specialized cancer centre to post-treatment care in the community is now being seen as critical to the overall health and well-being of patients [3][4][5][6][7][8] .…”

Enhancing Survivorship Care Planning for Patients With Localized Prostate Cancer Using a Couple-Focused mHealth Symptom Self-Management Program: Protocol for a Feasibility Study (Preprint)

“…[5][6][7][8] The limited research demonstrating SCP efficacy may relate in part to standardized SCPs' failure to be tailored to patient specific information and care needs during care transition. [9][10][11] To enhance survivorship care planning, SCPs, as part of routine care, may create a channel for distributing interventions to patients to improve their symptom self-management and other outcomes. [12,13] Survivorship care planning for patients with prostate cancer is particularly important because of the high incidence rates of prostate cancer among men in the U.S., [14] the frequent occurrence of side effects due to treatments with curative intent [15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22] (e.g., urinary, sexual, bowel, and hormonal symptoms, emotional distress, pain, fatigue, and sleep disturbance), and reduced quality of life caused by these symptoms.…”