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Assessing preferences for receiving supportive care resources among patients seen at a Breast Care Center

  • Clinical trial
  • Published:
Breast Cancer Research and Treatment Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Background

Patients with breast cancer or at high risk for breast cancer have supportive care needs. Although cancer centers offer social, psychological, and other support to these patients, these services are not always utilized, and patients continue to report unmet supportive care needs. Reasons for non-utilization of these services have not been well documented. In this analysis, we examine patient reasons for service non-utilization and evaluate patients’ interest in receiving information about and paying for other supportive care services.

Methods

Study participants were contacted by email 7–14 months following appointments at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) Breast Care Center (BCC) and were invited to complete a 26-question survey about supportive care utilization at UCSF.

Results

In total, 195 patients (45%) completed surveys. Of these, 68% had breast cancer. Among patients with breast cancer, fewer than half completed appointments with psychological services. Lack of self-perceived need was the primary reason patients did not pursue psychological services. Overall, 61% of participants were interested in learning more about psychological services, 27% in nutrition counseling, and 20% in exercise counseling. Participants were more interested in individual counseling than in group counseling but were less interested in paying for services.

Conclusion

Patients often feel that they do not need supportive services. Breast cancer patients are interested in learning more about psychological services, exercise counseling, and nutrition counseling. Although many cancer centers offer group coaching and counseling sessions on these topics, patients may be more willing to engage in individual counseling.

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Data availability

The survey data for this study were collected using Qualtrics software of Qualtrics, Provo, UT, USA, hosted at the University of California, San Francisco.

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Funding

Partial funding for this project was provided by Genentech, Inc. under Grant Number P0501762.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, California, USA

    Emily C. Wong, Celia P. Kaplan, Mikela Barulich & Michelle Melisko

  2. Multi-Ethnic Health Equity Research Center (MERC), University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, California, USA

    Celia P. Kaplan

Authors
  1. Emily C. Wong
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  2. Celia P. Kaplan
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  3. Mikela Barulich
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  4. Michelle Melisko
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Contributions

ECW, CPK, and MM contributed to the study conception and design. Material preparation, data collection, and analysis were performed by ECW and MB. The first draft of the manuscript was written by ECW and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Emily C. Wong.

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Conflict of interest

Michelle Melisko has received honoraria from Agendia and has received research funding from Novartis, Astra Zeneca, Nektar, Puma, KCRN Research, and Seattle Genetics. The remaining authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest.

Ethical approval

Approval was obtained from the committee on human research at the University of California San Francisco.

Informed consent

Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

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Wong, E.C., Kaplan, C.P., Barulich, M. et al. Assessing preferences for receiving supportive care resources among patients seen at a Breast Care Center. Breast Cancer Res Treat 183, 381–389 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10549-020-05786-0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10549-020-05786-0

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