Grant: Patient-Oriented Research Collaboration Grants

People diagnosed with cancer will go through different stages over the course of their cancer experience. This research project is concerned with the end of treatment time period, also known as the re-entry phase, when cancer patients complete treatment and begin the transition to 'everyday life'. Patients, at this stage, have fewer interactions with the medical team and may lose the accompanying sense of protection they had in their active phase of treatment. During this period patients are also vulnerable to symptoms including psychological distress, anxiety, fatigue, physical symptoms and fears of cancer recurrence. Currently, few interventions exist that prepare patients for the re-entry phase. Our project proposes to engage people who have lived the experience with different cancers to work together with healthcare professionals to improve the quality of care for patients who have completed treatment. We will collect patient experiences using video recording and identify their priorities for information and support during the re-entry phase. Once these are identified, patients will collaborate with healthcare professionals to determine the areas for quality improvement and service delivery. The end goal of this research project is to develop a program for people completing chemotherapy and/or radiotherapy treatment at hospitals in Montreal that will provide the emotional and informational support they require to facilitate the re-entry process and improve their quality of life. We foresee that the patient engagement approach to this project, known as co-design, and resulting intervention will inform other quality improvement initiatives within the healthcare and community sectors.