The psychosocial needs of cancer patients: findings from an observational study

Abstract

The objectives of this study were to identify the prevalence of psychosocial need, and the contributory factors to need, among cancer patients, using a descriptive cross-sectional questionnaire survey of adult cancer patients. The participants were 1,000 patients from four hospitals in the north west of England with the following characteristics: tumour type (breast, colorectal, lymphoma, lung), being 1 month from a 'critical moment' in the cancer journey (i.e. (i) diagnosis, (ii) end of first treatment, (iii) recurrence, (iv) move from active treatment to palliative care), and aged over 18 years. The main outcome measure was a psychosocial needs inventory comprising seven needs categories (48 need items). A sample of 402 was achieved (40% response rate). Psychosocial needs relating to the need categories 'health professionals', 'information' and 'support networks' are commonly expressed and strongly felt by cancer patients. Needs relating to 'identity', 'emotional and spiritual' issues and 'practical' issues are less commonly expressed but are also strongly felt. Particular needs are related to tumour type, illness 'critical moment', age, gender, health status, socioeconomic and other social factors. This information should increase awareness among cancer care professionals about a range of psychosocial needs and may help them target particular patient groups for particular support interventions.

Unmet psychosocial needs in haematological cancer: a systematic review

“…Six studies assessed need in participants who were at different timepoints in their experiences of cancer [6,[29][30][31][32][33][34]. Four of these six studies used the Patient Needs Inventory (PNI) to assess need in their samples [6,30,31,33,34].…”

“…Four of these six studies used the Patient Needs Inventory (PNI) to assess need in their samples [6,30,31,33,34]. In these, needs relating to healthcare professionals were ranked highly, with 94% and 88.8% of patients identifying confidence in healthcare professionals as being important to them [31,33].…”

“…Common examples include maintaining a sense of identity, body image, spirituality, relationships, social support mechanisms or the more practical issues related to a person's illness [5][6][7]. We know that needs of this nature are often underreported to clinicians [8] and therefore have the potential to be left unacknowledged.…”

Investigation of Cancer Patients’ Information Sources, Information Needs and Expectations of Health Professionals

“…[7] Ayrıca sağlık profesyonelleri bilgi verirken dürüst, merhametli ve empatik olmalı, zaman ayırmalı, dinlemeli, umut vermeli, alternatif tedavi yollarını anlatmalı, güvenilir, bilgili, saygılı, yardımsever ve ulaşılabilir olmalıdır. [7][8][9] Kanser hastaları bu süreçte yeterince bilgilendirilmek ve karar verme sorumluluğunu almak istemelerine rağmen yeterli bilgi ve yanıt alamamaktadırlar. [10,11] Hastalar en fazla tanı, tedavi, [8,10,12,13] testler, [10,14] cerrahi, [10] hastalığın etkileri [12,15,16] hastalık, prognoz, [10,17,18] duygusal ve sosyal konular, [14] fiziksel bakım, [14] bakım alabilecekleri yer ve gelecekteki bakım kararları, [17] hakkında bilgi almak istemektedirler.…”

First assessments by specialist cancer nurses in the community: An ethnography

“…Spiritual care recognises the relationship between illness and the spiritual domain and searching for meaning around illness and the future. Some patients have been found to actively seek to disguise their spiritual distress (McIllmurray et al, 2001), which is one conclusion that could be drawn from the lack of spiritual concern identified by patients when filling in the SCC in the course of this study. Richardson et al, (2006) suggest caution in relation to use of an assessment tool when considering the spiritual well-being domain as they suggest that this type of self-assessment may not be the best way for assessing this domain.…”