What is it about?
Not only guidelines and criteria for certification of cancer centres demand a distress screening but it is also a feasible possibility to steer psycho-oncological pathways. Up to now quite different instruments are recommended.
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Why is it important?
This study shows that recommended screening instruments to assess patients' distress measure quite different things. It also shows that the assessment of a "subjective need" is relevant as it adds important information which seems not to be covered by screening instruments.
Perspectives
When we started to work on this topic we wanted to know as soon as possible which cancer patient is in need of psycho-oncological counselling. It helps us in clinical routine to plan psycho-oncological counselling and improve both the psycho-oncological care and satisfaction in our team: The screening - which steers the psycho-oncological pathway - enables us to visit the most troubled patients despite of shortened inpatient treatment time.
Dr Norbert Schäffeler
Psychosomatic Medicine and Psychotherapy, Tuebingen University Hospital
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Assessing the need for psychooncological support: screening instruments in combination with patients' subjective evaluation may define psychooncological pathways, Psycho-Oncology, June 2015, Wiley,
DOI: 10.1002/pon.3855.
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