Cancer care communication: the power to harm and the power to heal?

Abstract

Objective: This study was designed to examine the belief held by many cancer patients that communication with their care providers has a meaningful part to play in shaping their disease outcomes.

Methods: From a large qualitative interview data set in which cancer patients described their perceptions of helpful and unhelpful heath care communication; we extracted the accounts of 69 patients and 13 focus group participants who specifically articulated a perceived relationship between communication and cancer outcomes. Through secondary analysis of that subset, we generated an interpretive description of patterns and themes within their accounts of a relationship between communication and cancer survivorship.

Results: Our findings document patient perceptions of the mechanisms involved in indirect and, some instances, direct relationships between communication encounters and cancer outcomes.

Conclusion: Some cancer patients believe that, by virtue of its influence upon comfort, inclusion, clarity and hope, communication can influence cancer outcomes.

Practice implications: While competing discourses exist within the patient population with regard to such associations, the perception that communication may influence clinical outcomes seems sufficiently pervasive and persistent that it warrants serious attention within care systems and by the psychosocial cancer research community.