6 research outputs found
Corrections to “Mapping unmet supportive care needs, quality-of-life perceptions and current symptoms in cancer survivors across the Asia-Pacific region: results from the International STEP Study”
No full textIn the original article, there were some errors in the numbers and accompanying text in the Abstract. These have now been corrected to match the numbers in the rest of the Article. Author M.-S. Li's name has been corrected to M. Yi and affiliation 7 has also been corrected to add 'Mahidol University, Bangkok' after 'Faculty of Nursing'.No Full Tex
Oncology practitioners' perspectives and practice patterns of post-treatment cancer survivorship care in the Asia-Pacific region: Results from the STEP study
No full textBackground: Most 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. Methods: A 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. Results: In 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. Conclusions: Different 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
Mapping unmet supportive care needs, quality-of-life perceptions and current symptoms in cancer survivors across the Asia-Pacific region: results from the International STEP Study
No full textBackground: To assess the supportive care needs, quality of life (QoL) and symptoms of patients with cancer after the end of first-line treatments and into survivorship in Asian countries using Australian data as benchmark
Mapping unmet supportive care needs, quality-of-life perceptions and current symptoms in cancer survivors across the Asia-Pacific region: Results from the International STEP Study
No full textBackground: To assess the supportive care needs, quality of life (QoL) and symptoms of patients with cancer after the end of first-line treatments and into survivorship in Asian countries using Australian data as benchmark.
Patients and methods: A cross-sectional survey was carried out in Australia and nine high-income (HICs) and low-/middleincome (LMICs) Asian countries (China, Japan, Hong Kong SAR, South Korea, Myanmar, Thailand, India, Singapore, Philippines) using validated scales (Cancer Survivors Unmet Needs scale), physical-symptom concerns (Cancer Survivors Survey of Needs subscale) and a single-item measure of global QoL perception.
Results: Data were collected from 1873 patients. QoL was highest in Australia; all other countries had significantly lower QoL than Australia (all P < 0.001). One-quarter of the patients reported low QoL (scores 1–3/10). The most frequently reported symptoms were fatigue (66.6%), loss of strength (61.8%), pain (61.6%), sleep disturbance (60.1%), and weight changes (57.7%), with no difference in symptom experience between Australian data and all other countries, or between HICs and LMICs. Unmet needs of moderate/strong level were high, particularly in the area of existential survivorship (psychosocial care) and receiving comprehensive cancer care. Australia and HICs had unmet needs (all low), but LMICs had a significantly higher number of needs both compared with Australia and HICs (all P < 0.001).
Conclusion: Health care systems in Asian countries need to re-think and prioritize survivorship cancer care and put action plans in place to overcome some of the challenges surrounding the delivery of optimal supportive cancer care, use available resource-stratified guidelines for supportive care and test efficient and cost-effective models of survivorship care
