Virtual psychosocial services for the adult population in a large community oncology practice.

Abstract

283 Background: Psychological and social supports are essential to address the emotional impact of cancer. The Covid-19 pandemic exacerbated emotional distress for patients with cancer and impeded many of the traditional service delivery models for supportive services. An increase in patient reported distress from routine distress screenings highlighted the need to transition to virtual Social Work (SW) services. Methods: Patients were referred to virtual SW services three ways: self-referral, distress screenings, and clinic staff. A virtual support group registration site was created to increase awareness which was promoted by our marketing team. Three different SW facilitated virtual support groups were offered: Stronger Together, Empower Your Recovery: A Program for Healing and Growth for Living Beyond Cancer©*, and Paving the Way for Your Journey: A Cancer Support Program (PTW). Of note, the PTW six-week psychoeducation support group curriculum was developed by six employed SW facilitators. Groups included closed and open formats with scheduled frequencies. In addition to virtual support groups, standard social support including, psychosocial assessments, Advance Care Planning, virtual counseling visits were offered virtually with patients via the VSee telemedicine platform. Results: Social Work referrals increased by 154% from 949 in 2019 to 2413 in 2020 due to positive distress screening. From March 2020-21, 14,948 patients received SW services which was an increase from 10,208 seen from March 2019-20. Of these, 372 received virtual psychosocial telemedicine services from March 2020-21. There were 4092 unique webpage views to the support group information and registration website. Total number of all virtual registrants in the 3 groups from May 2020 to February 2021 was 326. Conclusions: The COVID19 pandemic required us to use, technology and virtual tools to ensure continued patient access to psychosocial services and expand access to support groups, in addition to the in-person SW services that remained. Limitations of virtual support groups and telemedicine included lack of internet access felt to be from socioeconomic barriers. Further research is needed to evaluate the benefits of providing structured psychoeducational virtual support groups to patients with cancer. Virtual counseling and support groups may continue to benefit patients with cancer.