Palliative care needs of patients with cancer receiving active therapy

Abstract

Objectives: List the symptomsmost experiencedbypatents whenadmittedtotheoutpatientclinic. Discuss the unmet palliative careneeds of patientswithcancer. Importance: Needsassessmentofpatients isoneof the first step to plan and deliver palliative care services. Objective(s). To identify cancer patients’ palliative care need swith burden and severity of problems and felt needs related to these problems. Method(s): Across-sectional descriptive study, conducted in Septembere October 2019. The sample of the study was consisted of 136 cancer patients from an oncology out patient clinic in a tertiary hospital with no palliative care services in Istanbul, Turkey. Patients characteristics formand theThree Levels of Needs Question naire were used to collect data. Results:The mean age of patients was 61.5 13.2, the mean duration since the diagnos is was 1.21 1.92 years. The majority of them were diagnosed with breast (17.6%), colorectal (12.5%) or pancreas (12.5%)cancerand 45.6%hadstage4cancer. Of patients,55.9%expressed feeling as though they burden their families to someextend and 40.4%feell onelyat some level.Majority of (95.5%)patients have quite a bitor very much confidence in the healthcare service and the adequacy of help and/or treatment taken from health services was rankedas5.9 1.28(outof 10). The most intense problems for the patients were tiredness (18.4%), problems carrying out physical activities (16.9%) and worrying(12.5%). The most frequentun metneeds were tiredness (38.9%, n¼34), to be depressed(19.9%,n¼27)and lack of appetite(18.4%n¼25)among patients who reported to have these symptoms. Conclusion(s): Regarding to the unmet needs of patients, the health care professions should assess and integrate evidence-based intervent iontopalliate the burden of the symptoms for cancer patients. Tiredness and lack of appetite and depressive symptoms can be seen as cluster and trigger eachother’s, therefore should befocused together. Impact: Measuring patient’s experience in symptoms andpatient-reported palliative care needs is important to improve palliative cancer care in clinical settings.