Waiting room related symptoms: Patients’ experiences in an outpatient clinic of a cancer center

Abstract

20614 Background: Duration of staying in the waiting room might increase discomfort in patients with sever disease like cancer. For care givers, increased waiting period is perceived as stealing time from someone who would be happy to use it otherwise. Furthermore, increased waiting time might also mean forcing patients into a potentially undesired contact with others. The goal of this study was to identify, for patients with cancer, features of mood and fears in a waiting room and to capture their concrete proposals for an “anthropocentric” transformation of the waiting itself. Methods: A 15-item questionnaire comprehensive of a trade-off question, developed through patient interviews and satisfaction questionnaires, was administered to 355 patients who came to the outpatient oncological hospital for visits and treatment. Results: Patients felt that period of waiting is at low (55%), high or very high (28%) emotional cost for them and found waiting to be boring (48%) or distressing (16%). The greater emotional impact while waiting was seeing other sick people and their clinical decline (26%).More than half the patients find discussing their condition with other patients comforting; 62% are not upset to talk about their condition with others while waiting and 89% expressed desire for alternative activities to be organized during the waiting period such as structured meetings with specialists (31%), psychologists (24%), organized music (23%) and drawing courses (10%); fifty-five percent of patients believed the hospital should offer alternative activities to make them feel as normal human beings, rather than as “only” sick people. Conclusions: This study offers sufficient information on problems related to waiting at a cancer treatment ward, confirming the complexity and heterogeneity of its perception by patients. It also leads to recognize some unexpected positive aspects, like that a “collective” rather than “individual” waiting is not considered negatively. An “anthropocentric transformation” of the waiting is strongly evocated by most patients with cancer. No significant financial relationships to disclose.