Tag Archives: breast cancer survivors

Internal Research Fund – Psychoeducational Support

Photo by National Cancer Institute on Unsplash

Title

Enhancing patient engagement in the care of adult cancer survivors and caregivers through a psychoeducational supportive care in the interior region of British Columbia. 

Background

Cancer wields an enormous health burden on Canadian society. As such, to ensure quality and continuity, it is time to codevelop psychoeducational supportive care for increasing patient engagement in care for cancer survivors and their caregivers. This research proposes to fill such a gap and to advance our knowledge how to improve patient health outcomes. As such this project will employ a community participatory action research methodology with partners, collaborators and stakeholders including cancer survivors and caregivers. Community stakeholder engagement workshops with knowledge-users  will be ongoing to strengthen our community relationships and partnerships to other regions of British Columbia (BC). 

Goals and Objectives

The goal of the proposed research is to co-develop a psychoeducational supportive care with equity-deserving groups, as key stakeholders, for ensuring a novel patient and caregiver engagement in care and in the development and validation processes of a psychoeducational supportive care. 

To obtain this goal our Research Objectives include: 

  1. Creating a series of integrated knowledge translation tools with knowledge holders and users to employ towards a pilot psychoeducational supportive care. 
  2. Developing a pilot psychoeducational supportive care that will integrate patients’ experiences with existing cancer care, with a clear intention to contextualize the experiences of equity deserving groups. 
  3. Engage and share with study results with key stakeholders to create a robust cancer care network dedicated to improvement of cancer services. 

This study will explore patient care in design and operation of cancer navigation of cancer networks. This study will discuss patients’ barriers to, and facilitators of, accessing cancer care services and proposing a quantitative modeling framework. The impact of the existing supportive cancer care services through patient engagement in care of heterogenous patient populations will be reviewed. The research development will show how pilot psychoeducational supportive care can improve collaborative practice, holistic understanding, and patient satisfaction, which may be used by healthcare professionals, providers, leaders and administrators when determining how to bridge the gap in health care inequities and how to improve cancer care through a novel approach to psychoeducational supportive care and as a result may provide positive patient-reported outcomes. A key outcome of the knowledge sharing summits will be to co-create a plan to operationalize the development of a novel approach to psychoeducational supportive care strategies and the formation of a community advisory group to continue the work of accountability for the development of the psychoeducational supportive care for equity-deserving groups in rural and remote areas in BC. The study will demonstrate the application of proposed cancer navigation framework and develop policy insights towards equity oriented care. 

Internal Research Fund – Knowledge Synthesis

women sitting on the beach enjoying sunset
Photo by Briana Tozour on Unsplash

A Systematic Review on Breast Cancer Survivorship and Support for Immigrant Women with Breast Cancer.

January 2020 – December 2021

Purpose and Goal

The purpose of this research was to develop better understanding of the current scientific literature on the meaningfulness and effectiveness of breast cancer survivorship and support for women with breast cancer and to share current evidence-informed knowledge. This study aims to understand in-depth the contextual factors that shape survivorship and social support from the perspective of systematic reviews. Framed by evidence synthesis principles and systematic reviews, this study draws perspectives of survivorship and support in the literature studies to develop recommendations for continuity of care.

We have pursued the following research objectives:

  1. To provide contextual research literature information about breast cancer survivors. 
  2. To advance our understanding of the relationship between equity-seeking groups, the acculturation process, and the client’s attitudes and beliefs on what supports their healthy- being from knowledge synthesis.
  3. To identify the literature on social, economic, and cultural barriers and facilitators in breast cancer diagnosis, treatment and survivorship from knowledge synthesis. 
  4. To identify and develop future culturally acceptable, appropriate survivorship and support interventions and services perceived as safe and accessible for cancer survivors and their families with knowledge mobilization.       

Summary

The research activities have aligned with British Columbia’s health system priority services for patients with complex medical conditions to focus on research designed to improve health outcomes. This research aligns with BC Cancer to enhance access to effective primary and community care to enable research on practice, surveillance, and service delivery innovations and initiatives designed to improve accessibility and quality of primary and community care. The research activities focused on synthesizing a systematic review of breast cancer survivorship and support for women with breast cancer, leading to an expert consultation and stakeholder engagement. Outcomes were conceptualizing a systematic current literature review of breast cancer survivorship and support care, identifying areas of challenges in breast cancer survivorship related to evidence-informed knowledge and practice. The outcome was to initiate a support system through informed decision-making, synthesizing knowledge and practices on breast cancer survivorship.  Collaborative, supportive care contributes to future research for person-centred care, afford research capacity building, academic, clinical and community partnerships, and valuable student training.