The Influence of Health Literacy on Information Needs Among Women Newly Diagnosed With Breast Cancer, With Special Reference to Employment Status

Abstract

Breast cancer is the most frequent type of malignancy among women throughout Germany. The present analysis aimed to identify information needs and aspects of health literacy in women of working age newly diagnosed with breast cancer. PIAT is a prospective multicenter cohort study in which patients were asked about their information needs at 3 assessment points: postoperatively, after 10 weeks, and after 40 weeks. The present analysis includes data from 1,344 female patients after the first assessment point. In addition to descriptive analyses, logistic regression analyses were calculated. Results of the study show that, in addition to sociodemographic characteristics, the level of health literacy and the employment status of the women who responded to the inquiry influence specific unmet information needs. Most frequently mentioned unmet information needs relate to supplementary naturopathy, nutrition, health-promoting measures, and working during breast cancer. Patients with breast cancer are often provided with large amounts of information during their hospital stay indicating this information is not targeted to patient needs and may be overwhelming. The results show that information on everyday life needs such as supplementary naturopathy were important for the sample newly diagnosed with breast cancer. Employed women in particular have questions regarding working during cancer or tax relief.

Rural Disparities in Treatment-Related Financial Hardship and Adherence to Surveillance Colonoscopy in Diverse Colorectal Cancer Survivors

“…Given our unique study population, we were able to identify several disparities in financial hardship and adherence to surveillance colonoscopy that have not been reported previously, including a higher likelihood of treatment-related financial hardship among Spanish-speaking Hispanics and individuals with low health literacy, as well as a strong association between education and nonadherence to surveillance colonoscopy guidelines. Cancer patients with lower health literacy often report unmet information needs (30,31). In our study, individuals with low health literacy were 5.4 times as likely to report financial hardship than individuals reporting high health literacy.…”

Information Needs of Women with Breast Cancer: A Review of the Literature

“…These patients, regardless of cancer progression (metastatic or nonmetastatic), treatment stage (initiation or end of treatment), type of treatment (whether radiotherapy or chemotherapy or surgery) or occupation (whether they are employed or housewives), information about diagnosis and treatment is their most important information need, indicating the importance of this area and its subcategories among these patients. Previous studies have also addressed this issue [10,19,[26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40].…”

“…Previous studies have also addressed this issue [48][49][50]. Interruptions during recovery can increase the burden of the disease and respond to this need is very important in initiating treatment [32]. Among the different patient groups, literate and employed women and survivors at the age of menopause were among the groups whose information needs on complementary therapies was important [32,51].…”

Ten Years of Patient Surveys in Accredited Breast Centers in North Rhine-Westphalia

“…The need for more information decreased significantly over time for all items. Nevertheless, in certain areas, up to one third of patients still reported unfulfilled needs for more information [22][23][24].…”

“…Because breast cancer patients now spend less time in hospital [27] and the care given in Breast Centers has intensified, it is worth considering whether it is useful and feasible to provide breast cancer patients with information about the different aspects of disease, the associated challenges and the available support while they are still in hospital. This question and similar issues regarding breast cancer patientʼs information needs are being investigated in the PIAT study which is also being carried out by the IMVR [22][23][24]. The question is whether the physicians and therapists who treat the patients after they have been discharged from the Breast Center or e-Health technologies [28] would be a suitable means of providing information at the appropriate time to patients according to patientsʼ individual needs.…”