Abstract
A telephone help-line for cancer counselling and information was started in 1990 at the University Hospital of Uppsala, Sweden. During the first 3 years 735 calls were registered. Most of the calls were made by next of–kin and patients (30% + 28%), mostly by women (77%). The issues addressed were mainly medical or psycho-social ones. The medical questions were in most cases related to the patient's illness or treatment. The psycho-socialquestions were addressing the call-makers' (patient or next-of–kin) own anxiety and these calls ended up as supportive talks. Patients, compared to next-of-kin made more medical inquiries, whereas family members were more concerned with psycho-social questions (<i>P</i><0.01). Breast cancer accounted for a great part of the calls from patients, but significantly less from the relatives (<i>P</i><0.0001), whereas the opposite was true for colorectal carcinomas (<i>P</i><0.001). These findings and cultural differences, compared with other countries are discussed.
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