Abstract 2169
Background
Cancer patients and their caregivers are expected to take joint responsibility with regard to reporting symptoms and seeking medical assistance e.g. by calling oncology emergency telephones or other helplines during their cancer trajectory. This responsibility may pose additional burdens on patients and caregivers when they are at home with symptoms that can be potential life threatening. Furthermore, in this vulnerable situation, the ability to handle the responsibility is compromised, which may influence safeguarding fundamentals of care needs. Therefore, the objective of this study is to explore the meaning of responsibility as it appeared in patients or caregivers calls to an oncology emergency telephone.
Methods
Qualitative description and qualitative content analysis guided a secondary analysis and interpretation of data from interviews with 12 participants calling an oncology emergency telephone.
Results
The analysis revealed two main themes. 1). To act responsibly as patient or caregivers was elaborated by: ‘Being watchful and alert’, ‘Reporting the symptoms’, and ‘Cross checking’. 2). To deal with the burden of responsibility was elaborated by the sub-themes: ‘Feeling safe in dealing with the burden of responsibility’, and ‘Being relieved from the burden of responsibility’.
Conclusions
Conclusion: The study provided essential knowledge on how patients and caregivers handle responsibility in their everyday living with a cancer disease, treated on an outpatient basis. The meaning of responsibility appeared in the informants’ capacity to act where they displayed responsibility to observe, assess and report symptoms and control prescribed treatment as well as to share or hand over the responsibility to the healthcare providers. Easing the burden of responsibility requires a person-centered approach that integrates physical, psychosocial and relational needs and bridge a potential imbalance between healthcare providers’ expectations and the patients’ or caregivers knowledge and capacity to act. For this to succeed, establishing a caring relationship between HCPs, patients and caregivers is essential.
Clinical trial identification
Editorial acknowledgement
Legal entity responsible for the study
Birgith Pedersen.
Funding
Has not received any funding.
Disclosure
All authors have declared no conflicts of interest.
Resources from the same session
2171 - CCND1 Amplification Contributes to Immunosuppression in Head and Neck Squamous Cell Carcinoma and the Association with a Poor Response to Immune Checkpoint Inhibitors
Presenter: Chloe Huang
Session: Poster Display session 3
Resources:
Abstract
2624 - Efficacy of PD-1/PD-L1 inhibitors in the treatment of non-small cell lung cancer patients with sensitive genes mutation
Presenter: Hui-Juan Cui
Session: Poster Display session 3
Resources:
Abstract
3494 - Neutrophil to Lymphocyte Ratio (NLR) kinetics as predictors of outcomes in metastatic renal cell carcinoma (mRCC) and non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients treated with nivolumab (N).
Presenter: Audrey Simonaggio
Session: Poster Display session 3
Resources:
Abstract
3964 - Predictive markers of checkpoint inhibitor activity in adult metastatic solid tumours
Presenter: Alexandra Pender
Session: Poster Display session 3
Resources:
Abstract
3041 - Blood-based TMB (bTMB) correlates with tissue-based TMB (tTMB) in a multi-cancer Phase I IO Cohort
Presenter: Daniel Araujo
Session: Poster Display session 3
Resources:
Abstract
3910 - Analysis of Molecular Profile Complexities for Immunotherapy Decision Support
Presenter: Robert Dóczi
Session: Poster Display session 3
Resources:
Abstract
4836 - The Role of Tumor Neoantigens in the Differential Response to Immunotherapy (IO) in EGFR and BRAF Mutated Lung Cancers - Quantity or Quality?
Presenter: Katrina Case
Session: Poster Display session 3
Resources:
Abstract
1929 - Impact of previous corticosteroid (CS) exposure on efficacy of Programmed Cell Death-(Ligand) 1 blockade in patients with advanced Non-Small-Cell Lung Cancer (NSCLC): a single Center retrospective analysis
Presenter: Fabrizio Nelli
Session: Poster Display session 3
Resources:
Abstract
2601 - Comparison 18F-FDG-PET/CT criteria for prediction of therapy response and clinical outcome in patients with metastatic melanoma treated with Ipilimumab and PD-1 inhibitors
Presenter: Sabrina Vari
Session: Poster Display session 3
Resources:
Abstract
3628 - Predictive model for survival in advanced non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) treated with frontline pembrolizumab
Presenter: Xabier Mielgo Rubio
Session: Poster Display session 3
Resources:
Abstract