The perceived cancer-related financial hardship among patients and their families: a systematic review

Abstract

Evidently, cancer is a long-term illness that requires a high financial cost, and a significant number of cancer patients and families struggle with financial difficulty. Identifying such groups with a high risk of facing financial difficulty is a crucial measure to ensure safety nets are readily available for these targeted population.

Predictors of financial difficulties and work modifications among cancer survivors in the United States

“…Our results are consistent with prior reports showing that cancer survivors face productivity losses and heavy financial burdens as a result of their disease and related treatment [3, 4, 6, 8–13, 18, 19]. Previous estimates of the proportion of cancer survivors with financial distress have ranged from 14–78 % [12]. The proportion of cancer survivors filing for bankruptcy—just one of several measures of financial distress we examined—has been previously been estimated at 2.2 % and is similar to findings in our study [10].…”

“…In a nationally representative sample, recently diagnosed and previously diagnosed cancer survivors had annual excess economic burdens of over $16,000 and $4000, respectively per survivor, over and above the annual burden of individuals without cancer [11]. Importantly, those experiencing financial distress are more likely to delay or forgo needed medical care—including needed cancer treatments [6, 12]—and are more likely to experience adverse health outcomes, such as anxiety, depression, and poor health-related quality of life [6, 13–16]. Accordingly, national policy recommendations include monitoring and support for financial distress in the growing population of cancer survivors [17].…”

“…Previous population-based studies have generally analyzed expenditures and are limited in their ability to account for indirect costs and other factors that impact the overall financial burden on cancer survivors or use very broad measures of perceived financial burden rather than specific measures such as debt or bankruptcy [4, 5, 8, 11, 16, 18, 19]. A recent systematic review of studies on cancer-related financial distress identified only four US studies reporting the prevalence of financial distress among adult cancer survivors, most of which were conducted at single institutions and focused on subgroups of cancer survivors [12]. …”

Feasibility of Assessing Patient Health Benefits and Incurred Costs Resulting from Early Dysphagia Intervention during and Immediately after Chemoradiotherapy for Head-and-Neck Cancer

“…Out-of-pocket expenses reported by our patients were higher than those reported for adult patients with other solid tumours 11,19 . However, lost time from work among our study patients was similar to time lost by breast cancer patients 29,30 .…”

“…Given that supplement costs are relatively specific to hnc, it is not surprising that costs in that category are much higher than are seen in other common solid cancers (breast, colorectal, lung, and prostate) 11,19 . We note that our study patients reported more lost time from work than is seen in patients with other cancers 29,30 . Perhaps our capture of multiple time points allowed us to more accurately assess lost-time peaks, which our earlier studies missed with the inclusion of only one time point per person.…”