Outpatient psychosocial screening in askin cancer center: acceptance, psychosocial distress and utilization of support : Aposthoc analysis in aquality management program

Abstract

Psychosocial care of cancer patients is an important aspect throughout the entire course of oncological treatment. Since 2015, psychosocial screening has been implemented in the outpatient clinics of the Skin Cancer Center in Freiburg. We present here apost hoc analysis in the context of aquality management program. Acceptance, psychosocial distress and desire for counseling were evaluated. Exploratively, we investigated which patient and disease characteristics are related to increased subjective distress. In afull survey from 06/2015 to 12/2015, we evaluated acceptance, psychosocial distress by distress thermometer (DT), and desire for counseling. Of 753 patients, 345 (45.8%) participated in psychosocial screening and data from 310 (174men, 136women; 89.7% melanoma patients, mean time since initial diagnosis 4.7 ± 3.9years) could be analyzed. The mean burden on the DT was 2.97 ± 2.83 (median2, range 0-10). High distress (DT ≥ 5) was reported by 84patients (28.8%). Thirty-four patients (11%) indicated adesire for counseling, and 23patients took up the counseling offer. The patient group with high distress was younger, more often under ongoing or recently completed systemic therapy, and had more often adesire for counseling. In addition to assessing psychosocial distress with validated screening instruments, the survey of the subjective desire for care represents an important parameter for the identification of patients in need of care. Young patients and patients with ongoing systemic therapy should be the focus of attention.