Understanding the Attitudes and Beliefs of Oncologists Regarding the Transitioning and Sharing of Survivorship Care.

Courtney H Coschi,Daryl Bainbridge,Jonathan Sussman

doi:10.3390/curroncol28060454

Courtney H Coschi, Daryl Bainbridge + Show 1 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/curroncol28060454

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Abstract

Transitioning survivorship care from oncologists to primary care physicians (PCPs) is a reasonable alternative to oncologist-led care. This study assessed oncologists’ attitudes and beliefs regarding sharing/transitioning survivorship care. A prospective survey of oncologists within a regional cancer program assessing self-reported barriers and facilitators to sharing/transitioning survivorship care was disseminated. In total, 63% (n = 39) of surveyed oncologists responded. Patient preference (89%) and anxiety (84%) are key to transition of care decisions; reduced remuneration (95%) and fewer longitudinal relationships (63%) do not contribute. Oncologists agreed that more patients could be shared/transitioned. Barriers include treatment-related toxicities (82% agree), tumor-specific factors (60–90% agree) and perception of PCP willingness to participate in survivorship care (47% agree). Oncologists appear willing to share/transition more survivors to PCPs, though barriers exist that warrant further study. Understanding these issues is critical to developing policies supporting comprehensive survivorship care models that address both cancer and non-cancer health needs. The demonstrated feasibility of this project warrants a larger-scale survey of oncologists with respect to the transition of survivorship care to PCPs, to further inform effective interventions to support high-quality survivorship care.

Highlights

Our study found that oncologists clearly identified that a substantial proportion of their survivorship patient population could be shared with or transitioned to primary care physicians (PCPs)
Oncologist perceptions are integral to applying knowledge-translation strategies, and developing future policy for survivorship care
The compelling facilitators to non-oncologist-led survivorship care still appear to be outweighed by barriers

Summary

Introduction

Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Improvements in cancer screening and treatment have led to significant increases in the number of cancer survivors, each having a unique set of survivorship needs [1,2,3,4,5]. In Canada, survival for all cancers combined rose from 55% in the period 1992–1994 to. 63% in the period 2012–2014 [1]. In 2015, the prevalence of cancer in Canadians was

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