Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2019 Apr;27(4):1383-1394.
doi: 10.1007/s00520-018-4426-4. Epub 2018 Aug 22.

Unmet supportive care needs in Hispanic/Latino cancer survivors: prevalence and associations with patient-provider communication, satisfaction with cancer care, and symptom burden

Patricia I Moreno  1 , Amelie G Ramirez  2 , Sandra L San Miguel-Majors  3 , Leopoldo Castillo  1 , Rina S Fox  1 , Kipling J Gallion  2 , Edgar Munoz  2 , Ryne Estabrook  1 , Arely Perez  2 , Thomas Lad  4 , Courtney Hollowell  5 , Frank J Penedo  6
Affiliations

Unmet supportive care needs in Hispanic/Latino cancer survivors: prevalence and associations with patient-provider communication, satisfaction with cancer care, and symptom burden

Patricia I Moreno et al. Support Care Cancer. 2019 Apr.

Abstract

Purpose: The aim of this study was to elucidate the prevalence of unmet supportive care needs in Hispanic/Latino cancer survivors and examine the association between unmet needs and patient-provider communication, satisfaction with cancer care, and cancer-specific symptom burden.

Methods: Hispanics/Latinos diagnosed with breast, prostate, or colorectal cancer within 15 months of treatment completion (n = 288) completed questionnaires as part of an NCI-funded project.

Results: Hispanic/Latino cancer survivors reported greater unmet needs compared to previously published norms in primarily non-Hispanic/Latino white samples. Across the three cancer types, the two most common unmet needs were in the psychological domain: fear of metastasis (32.6%) and concern for close others (31.3%). However, unmet needs varied by cancer type. Factors associated with greater unmet needs included more recent cancer diagnosis (OR .98 [.96-.99]), younger age (OR .96-.97 [.93-.99]), female gender (OR 2.53-3.75 [1.53-7.36]), and being single (OR 1.82 [1.11-2.97]). Breast cancer survivors reported greater unmet needs than both prostate and colorectal cancer survivors (OR 2.33-5.86 [1.27-14.01]). Adjusting for sociodemographic and medical covariates, unmet needs were associated with lower patient-provider communication self-efficacy (B = - .18-- .22, p's < .01) and satisfaction with cancer care (B = - 3.57-- 3.81, p's < .05), and greater breast (B = - 4.18-- 8.30, p's < .01) and prostate (B = - 6.01-- 8.13, p's < .01) cancer-specific symptom burden.

Conclusions: Findings document unmet supportive care needs in Hispanic/Latino cancer survivors and suggest that reducing unmet needs in Hispanic/Latino cancer survivors may improve not only satisfaction with care, but also health-related quality of life.

Keywords: Hispanic; Latino; Patient-provider communication; Satisfaction with care; Supportive care; Survivorship; Unmet needs.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors have no conflicts of interest to declare.

References

    1. Richardson A, Medina J, Brown V, Sitzia J (2007) Patients’ needs assessment in cancer care: A review of assessment tools. Support Care Cancer 15:1125–1144. doi: 10.1007/s00520-006-0205-8 - DOI - PubMed
    1. Bonevski B, Sanson-Fisher R, Girgis A, Burton L, Cook P, Boyes A, the Supportive Care Review Group (2000) Evaluation of an instrument to assess the needs of patients with cancer. Cancer 88:217–225. doi: 10.1002/(SICI)1097-0142(20000101)88:1<217::AID-CNCR29>3.0.CO;2-Y - DOI - PubMed
    1. McDowell ME, Occhipinti S, Ferguson M, Dunn J, Chambers SK (2010) Predictors of change in unmet supportive care needs in cancer. Psychooncology 19:508–516. doi: 10.1002/pon.1604 - DOI - PubMed
    1. Snyder CF, Garrett-Mayer E, Brahmer JR, Carducci MA, Pili R, Stearns V, Wolff AC, Dy SM, Wu AW (2008) Symptoms, supportive care needs, and function in cancer patients: How are they related? Qual Life Res 17:665–677 - PMC - PubMed
    1. Snyder CF, Garrett-Mayer E, Blackford AL, Brahmer JR, Carducci MA, Pili R, Stearns V, Wolff AC, Dy SM, Wu AW (2009) Concordance of cancer patients’ function, symptoms, and supportive care needs. Qual Life Res 18:991–998. doi: 10.1007/s11136-009-9519-6 - DOI - PubMed

LinkOut - more resources