End of treatment holistic needs assessment –are psychosocial needs masked by physical concerns?

Campbell, Karen; Johnston, Lucy; Marron, Brooke

Abstract

Background: The Transforming Care after Treatment programme in Scotland (TCAT) established national and regional structures to support the implementation of 25 local projects, each with different local approaches to achieving ‘good survivorship’. Funded by Macmillan Cancer Support, the overall programme seeks to improve the after care for people living with and beyond cancer. A multi-disciplinary team at Edinburgh Napier University is carrying out the evaluation of this programme.
Methods: At the interim, data are available for 536 individuals who completed a Concerns Checklist at their end of their active treatment for cancer. This has been gathered from six pilot sites, all of which used this holistic needs assessment tool in a hospital setting and were facilitated by specialist nurse.
Results: The results to date illustrate that at the end of treatment for cancer people have a mix of physical and psychosocial needs; 63% of those assessed identified physical concerns and 27% emotional concerns. Overall, the third most frequently cited concern was the emotional concern of ‘worry, fear or anxiety’. Category or domain analysis of concerns highlights the predominance of physical concerns, which may also mask the level of emotional concerns identified.
Conclusion: Our work to date highlights the need for those facilitating assessments relevant to managing longer term consequences of cancer, to understand how emotional can be addressed and met at the end of treatment.
We will present data on the role of the professional in the assessment, triggers for referral and signposting for physical and emotional concerns.

• Presentation Conference Type: Poster
• Conference Name: British Psychosocial Oncology Society
• Start Date: Mar 6, 2017
• End Date: Mar 8, 2017
• Deposit Date: Mar 4, 2021
• Public URL: http://researchrepository.napier.ac.uk/Output/1239823
• Publisher URL: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/pon.4374