Abstract
A diagnosis of cancer leaves most patients with cancer and their relatives with an increased psychological burden. Throughout the course of the illness, social, occupational or legal changes may lead to psychological distress. Psychosocial cancer support services offer psychological, social and legal support. However, little is known about the effectiveness of psychosocial support services implemented in health care. Therefore, this scoping review aims to provide an overview of current literature evaluating out-patient psychosocial support services. Databases searched were PubMed, PsycINFO, PSYNDEX, PsycArticle, Medline, Web of Science, Google Scholar, Cochrane, and Embase. Two independent researchers conducted the systematic search. We included studies that were published in English and assessed at least one patient reported outcome measure. Studies that assessed psychotherapy, online support or telephone counselling were excluded. The review was reported according to PRISMA-ScR guidelines. A search of the databases identified 2104 articles. After excluding duplicates, screening titles, abstracts and full-texts, 12 studies matching the criteria were identified. One study was an RCT, six were prospective with no control group and five studies were cross-sectional with one measurement point. The most common outcome measures across studies were well-being, concerns and satisfaction with the support services. While the included studies indicate some improvements to well-being for patients with cancer, the low number and lack of high quality of studies indicate these findings should be interpreted with caution. However, high-quality research on the effectiveness of psychosocial support services is needed to determine that the interventions are effective.
Highlights
According to the World Health Organization’s latest global cancer data, 18.1 million new cases of cancer and 9.6 million deaths were recorded in 2018 [1]
The most common instrument used was the Measure Yourself Concerns and Wellbeing questionnaire (MYCaW) [35], which four studies chose as a primary outcome [24, 27,28,29]
Many more countries (e.g., Australia, India) provide psychosocial cancer support services but lack research on evaluating their services. This scoping review provides a first overview of existing research on evaluations of psychosocial cancer support services, which highlights the lacking evidence on this important health care service. The results of this scoping review suggest that the current state of research on the effectiveness of psychosocial cancer support centers is unsatisfactory especially as high-quality studies including an RCT-design and standardized instruments assessing the full scope of the support services have not yet been conducted
Summary
According to the World Health Organization’s latest global cancer data, 18.1 million new cases of cancer and 9.6 million deaths were recorded in 2018 [1]. It has been established that patients living with or surviving cancer have poorer quality of life and often feel the need for support beyond their medical treatment. Psychosocial concerns such as psychological, occupational and financial obstacles are perceived as distressing by patients with cancer [3]. Depending on the problems that need to be addressed psychosocial interventions for patients with cancer can generally be assigned to one of the three following areas: mental health services, social work services and spiritual care [8,9,10]. This scoping review aims to provide an overview of current literature evaluating out-patient psychosocial support services
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