Emotional care is fundamental to providing comprehensive cancer care, according to a new study led by Professor Mei Krishnasamy and published in the journal, Healthcare.
Emotional care is the identification of, and tailored responses to, emotional suffering experienced by people affected by cancer.
The paper, Perspectives on Emotional Care: A Qualitative Study with Cancer Patients, Carers, and Health Professionals, explored the idea that providing emotional care as part of supportive care should be the platform upon which all other aspects of cancer care are delivered. In addition, it purported that without attention to emotional care, no other aspects of cancer care can be fully realised.
“For many participants, having emotional care was synonymous with easing the burden of a cancer diagnosis,” said Prof Krishnasamy, VCCC Alliance Research and Education Lead for Nursing, and Director of the Academic Nursing Unit at Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre.
“Easing the burden came in many forms, from recognising that someone is experiencing hardship and making it possible to ask for help, or finding practical solutions to problems such as living arrangements or financial concerns. These were all recognised as the provision of emotional care because they took account of the wider context of the person’s life.”
Qualitative focus groups and interviews were undertaken as part of a large mixed methods study to refresh and develop new approaches to the integration of cancer supportive care across acute health services in Victoria. Sixteen patients, six carers and 25 health care professionals contributed to these particular focus groups and interviews. The study was funded by the Victorian Department of Health.
The study found emotional care was fundamental to the provision of comprehensive cancer care, essential to easing the burden of a cancer diagnosis and treatment demands, was everyone’s responsibility and part of cancer care at every point of contact with health services.
“Participants in our study spoke of the importance of having timely access to and knowledge of support and services available,” said Prof Krishnasamy.
“The insights generated contributed to the development of the supportive care portal – WeCan – where patients, carers and health care professionals can assess distress and the problems contributing to it, and navigate directly to evidence-informed and freely available supportive care resources.”
More than a third (35 to 40 per cent) of patients with cancer experience emotional or psychological distress at some stage during their illness, and this is especially true for patients who enter the health system already burdened by poverty, poor health literacy, rurality, cultural and linguistic diversity, or who belong to Indigenous or First Nations peoples, the paper said, which focused on experiences of emotional care as a distinct component of supportive care, by people affected by cancer and health care professionals involved in their care.
