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The challenges of returning to work for differentiated thyroid cancer survivors in china: a qualitative study

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Abstract

Purpose

Although thyroid cancer survivors have a good prognosis and the survival rate of differentiated thyroid cancer is close to 100%, treatment and its side effects seriously affect the quality of life of patients, especially rehabilitation at work. The purpose of this study was to explore the challenges faced by differentiated thyroid cancer survivors in returning to work and maintaining employment.

Methods

A purposive sample of differentiated thyroid cancer patients who had undergone surgical treatment and were followed up at the outpatient departments of thyroid surgery wards of two tertiary care hospitals in Jiangsu Province, China, between January and March 2023, were subjected to semi-structured interviews. An inductive content analysis was conducted to identify themes.

Results

A total of 27 participants, aged 23–56 years, were interviewed. Three themes and eight subthemes were identified: pressure perception including social pressure in the workplace, regular appointments conflict with work schedules, and dilemma of career development; the challenges of self-adjustment including physical disorder, unable to adapt to the pace of work, and unstable mood affects working condition; and lack of social support including lack of access to information or support groups, lack of sympathy and understanding from employers, and lack of professional support.

Conclusions

Our study identified that our participants with differentiated thyroid cancer patients face challenges in trying to return to work or maintain employment within the confines of their disease. Multilevel interventions, ranging from employer and co-worker understanding to information, psychological and other support from health care professionals, can facilitate the process of returning to work and help patients reconcile illness and work.

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Data availability

To protect participants’ privacy, no original data can be released, but are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Author notes

  1. Pingting Zhu and Hui Zhang contributed equally to the work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Nursing, Yangzhou University, Hanjiang County,136 Jiangyang Middle Road, Yangzhou, 225009, Jiangsu Province, China

    Pingting Zhu, Hui Zhang, Wen Wang, Xinyue Gu, Yinwen Ding, Meiyan Qian & Guanghui Shi

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  1. Pingting Zhu
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  3. Wen Wang
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Contributions

All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Material preparation and data collection were performed by Hui Zhang and Wen Wang. Analysis was performed by Hui Zhang, Wen Wang, Xinyue Gu, and Pingting Zhu. Pingting Zhu and Hui Zhang wrote the main manuscript text and they contributed equally to the work. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Pingting Zhu.

Ethics declarations

Ethics approval

This study was performed in line with the principles of the Declaration of Helsinki. Approval was granted by the Ethics Committee of School of Nursing of Yangzhou University (No. YZUHL20230099).

Informed consent

At the beginning of the interview, we explained the target of the research to the participants and informed them that the interviews would be recorded, but at any time they prefer, the audio recording would be cut off.

Consent to participate

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

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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Zhu, P., Zhang, H., Wang, W. et al. The challenges of returning to work for differentiated thyroid cancer survivors in china: a qualitative study. Support Care Cancer 31, 582 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00520-023-08049-y

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