Abstract
Identification of cancer-specific distress, supportive care needs, and satisfaction with psychosocial care in young adult cancer survivors. 117 young adults diagnosed with cancer (AYA), aged between 18 and 39 years old at the time of the survey completed questionnaires to measure cancer-specific distress (QSC-R23) and supportive care needs (SCNS-SF34), as well as their utilization of and satisfaction with psychosocial care after acute medical treatment (0-5 years). Differences between two survivor groups (≤2 years from diagnosis and >2 years from diagnosis) were assessed. Participants reported slight cancer-specific distress (M=1.22; SD=0.85) and had the highest scores in the fears domain (M=1.90; SD=1.33). AYA survivors ≤2 years from diagnosis (M=39.82; SD=26.33) and survivors >2 years from diagnosis (M=25.68; SD=27.97) most often reported their psychological supportive care needs as being unmet followed by their health system/information and sexuality support needs. Unmet needs were positively associated with cancer-specific distress (R2=0.694). More than half of the AYA cancer survivors in both groups used social legal counselling (N=67/117, 57.3%) and psychological counselling (N=65/117, 55.6%) and were mostly highly satisfied with those services. It is important to provide psychological supportive care to AYA cancer survivors, a patient group that is very open to taking advantage of such services. This should be taken into account when implementing specific psychosocial follow-up care as early as possible to decrease reported unmet needs. Cancer-related fears seem to remain a salient issue for patients even long after they have completed treatment.
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