Support for Metastatic Breast Cancer Patients—a Systematic Review

Abstract

Our study objective was to evaluate existing evidence on different types of support received by metastatic breast cancer patients as well as the need for support expressed by such patients. We searched Medline and EMBASE up to January 2019 for survey studies that aimed to assess any type of support among women of any age, with metastatic breast cancer diagnosis. Two reviewers independently screened titles and abstracts, then full texts of retrieved records against inclusion/exclusion criteria, and extracted the data and assessed the quality of included studies with AXIS tool. From a total of 2876 abstracts, we selected 100 potentially eligible full-text articles, and finally, we included 12 records reporting on 11 studies. Due to the variability of methods used to measure and define support, it was not possible to quantitatively synthesize data; therefore, we synthesized them narratively. The quality of the included studies was moderate. We found that most patients are satisfied with the received psychosocial, emotional, informational, and medical support. In the analysis of any support received from a certain type of group of people, we found that the majority of patients reported receiving sufficient support from their family, friends, and healthcare providers. Ten studies showed a high need for informational support. If asked about the need for psychosocial, medical, and sexual support, women also declared the need for such support. Our review revealed that the patients generally receive support from their community but they express high need for information and treatment choice. PROSPERO CRD42019127496 Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (10.1007/s13187-020-01783-5) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Development and Implementation of an Online Education Program on Advanced Breast Cancer for European Cancer Nurses: ABC4Nurses Project: a Brief Report

“…People with advanced breast cancer (ABC) have higher unmet needs in terms of distress, depression and anxiety, employment, finances, information and support [ 2 ]. Nurses with specialist knowledge and skills are integral to multidisciplinary care; however, most people with ABC do not have access to specialised care [ 3 ], and there are wide variations internationally in support provision [ 4 ]. Moreover, access to education for cancer nurses is not available in some European countries [ 5 ].…”