Survey of the provision of supportive care services at National Cancer Institute-designated cancer centers.

Abstract

Survey results provide data on SCS across a representative sample of NCI cancer centers and can be used to develop standards for future cancer control programs.

Psychosocial supportive care for children receiving stem cell transplantation: practice patterns across centers

“…It is possible that our results may reflect an upper limit estimate or optimistic impression regarding the availability of support services in pediatric transplant centers. The survey instrument was developed by the investigators drawing in part on prior supportive care studies, 20,22 but it is a simple mailed survey rather than a standardized measure and its psychometric properties are unknown. In particular, the instrument was designed to be as brief as possible in order to maximize the response rate; hence, several areas of interest were omitted and merit attention in future research (eg, in-house services vs external referrals; screening of nutritional status; specific interventions for management of pain and fatigue; provision Table 4 Extended follow-up offered by pediatric transplant centers Notwithstanding these limitations, current findings suggest that supportive care services might be enhanced by more consistent screening across a range of QOL domains (especially sleep disturbance and cognitive deficits), and by supplementing information from interviews or medical exams with data from standardized measures that capture the perspective of the child and/or parent.…”

“…Item construction was informed in part by previous supportive care surveys 20,22 and by interdisciplinary collaboration among the team's hematologist-oncologists, nurses, and behavioral scientists to enhance content validity, but with an emphasis on brevity and ease of administration. The instrument encompassed four selected components of pediatric supportive care, including (1) QOL screening, (2) psychosocial interventions, (3) support services for staff, and (4) long-term follow-up care.…”

“…Moreover, although children were treated at many of these facilities, only one 21 of the three studies distin-guished between services directed toward adults and those for children. Each of these American 20,21 and British 22 research teams concluded that supportive care services are being developed in a fragmented, poorly coordinated manner. An additional concern was that some services were excessively dependent on the special initiative of one or two staff members rather than part of an integrated policy of care, and thus especially vulnerable to staff turnover or altered fiscal commitments.…”

“…We are aware of no published investigations that have examined supportive care services specifically among pediatric BMT programs. Two studies 20,21 explored the availability of a number of supportive care services at 39 National Cancer Institute-(NCI) designated cancer centers, and one study 22 examined services at 170 English Health Districts. These studies offer a preliminary portrait of QOL interventions, but none of them focused on QOL screening or early identification of deficits.…”

Expériences d’infirmières en oncologie concernant l’utilisation, par les patients, de thérapies complémentaires et de thérapies parallèles

“…Une enquête similaire sur les services offerts par les centres de cancérologie agréés par le NCI des États-Unis constatait les taux de disponibilité suivants pour les thérapies complémentaires: 82 % offraient la relaxation, 56 % l'imagerie mentale dirigée, 46 % l'hypnothérapie, 39 % l'art thérapie, 36 % la musicothérapie et 26 % le massage (Coluzzi et al, 1995). En Ontario, un examen des centres régionaux de cancérologie révélait les taux de disponibilité ci-dessous: imagerie mentale dirigée (100 %), relaxation (100 %), art thérapie (38 %), hypnothérapie (38 %) et thérapie par contact avec les animaux (25 %) (Fitch, 1997).…”