Oncology practitioners’ perspectives and practice patterns of post-treatment cancer survivorship care in the Asia-Pacific region: results from the STEP study

BMC Cancer

Research Article

Violeta Lopez¹  David Wyld²  Jesson Butcon³  Myungsun Yi⁴  Selva Titus Chacko⁵  Hiroko Komatsu⁶  Kanaungnit Pongthavornkamol⁷  Pongpak Pittayapan⁸  Raymond Javan Chan⁹  Patsy Yates⁹  Alex Molassiotis^1,10  Winnie Kwok Wei So^1,11  Myat Thandar^1,12  Qiuping Li^1,13 

[1] Alice Lee Centre for Nursing Studies, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore, Singapore, Singapore;Cancer Care Services, Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital, Brisbane, Australia;College of Medicine, Bicol University, Bicol, Philippines;College of Nursing and Research Institute of Nursing Science, Seoul National University, Seoul, Republic of Korea;College of Nursing, Christian Medical College, Vellore, India;Faculty of Nursing and Medical Care, Keio University, Tokyo, Japan;Faculty of Nursing, Mahidol University, Bangkok, Thailand;Nursing Department of Siriraj Hospital, Mahidol University, Bangkok, Thailand;School of Nursing and Institute of Health and Biomedical Innovation, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia;Cancer Care Services, Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital, Brisbane, Australia;School of Nursing, Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong, China;The Nethersole School of Nursing, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China;The University of Nursing, Yangon, Myanmar;Wuxi Medical School, Jiangnan University, Wuxi, Jiangsu, China;

关键词: Cancer survivorship;    Asia-Pacific region;    Health professionals;    Oncology practitioner;    Practice patterns;    Perspectives;    Barriers;   

DOI  :  10.1186/s12885-017-3733-3

 received in 2017-03-26, accepted in 2017-10-30,  发布年份 2017

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundMost efforts to advance cancer survivorship care have occurred in Western countries. There has been limited research towards gaining a comprehensive understanding of survivorship care provision in the Asia-Pacific region. This study aimed to establish the perceptions of responsibility, confidence, and frequency of survivorship care practices of oncology practitioners and examine their perspectives on factors that impede quality survivorship care.MethodsA cross-sectional survey of hospital-based oncology practitioners in 10 Asia-Pacific countries was undertaken between May 2015–October 2016. The participating countries included Australia, Hong Kong, China, Japan, South Korea, Thailand, Singapore, India, Myanmar, and The Philippines. The survey was administered using paper-based or online questionnaires via specialist cancer care settings, educational meetings, and professional organisations.ResultsIn total, 1501 oncology practitioners participated in the study. When comparing the subscales of responsibility perception, frequency and confidence, Australian practitioners had significantly higher ratings than practitioners in Hong Kong, Japan, Thailand, and Singapore (all p < 0.05). Surprisingly, practitioners working in Low- and Mid- Income Countries (LMICs) had higher levels of responsibility perception, confidence and frequencies of delivering survivorship care than those working in High-Income Countries (HICs) (p < 0.001), except for the responsibility perception of care coordination where no difference in scores was observed (p = 0.83). Physicians were more confident in delivering most of the survivorship care interventions compared to nurses and allied-health professionals. Perceived barriers to survivorship care were similar across the HICs and LMICs, with the most highly rated items for all practitioners being lack of time, dedicated educational resources for patients and family members, and evidence-based practice guidelines informing survivorship care.ConclusionsDifferent survivorship practices have been observed between HICs and LMICs, Australia and other countries and between the professional disciplines. Future service planning and research efforts should take these findings into account and overcome barriers identified in this study.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© The Author(s). 2018