Grant: Travel Awards - Institute Community Support

Chronic illnesses pose major burden on health. Canadian patients face the challenge of integrating chronic illnesses into their lives. Adjustments in mindset (e.g., overcome fear) and in actions (e.g., self-care, communication) to accommodate chronic diseases, with goals to maintain health and establish normalcy, constitute the central tenet of self-management. A majority of studies on self-management focuses on education and training about disease-specific skills (e.g., knowing when to take prescribed medications for nausea). These skills and knowledge are developed in partnership among patients, families and healthcare providers. Through the use of a questionnaire, the present study explored the pattern of collaboration between patients and their healthcare providers during cancer treatment. Also, this study examined whether such collaboration improved patients' ability to self-care and well-being. Our findings demonstrated that, collaboration between cancer patients and providers improved patient well-being while undergoing cancer treatment through enabling the advancement of self-management skills. We also learnt that, when patients experienced low levels of symptoms, they collaborated mostly with their doctors, radiation therapists and nurses. Social workers, dietitians and spiritual support persons were involved only when patients experienced relevant issues. These findings supported future investigations on specific support for patients and healthcare providers in promoting patients' ability to manage their chronic illnesses. For instance, our findings will guide the development of toolkits and algorithm to prompt communications between patients and providers on self-care topics identified in this study (e.g., confidence in knowing when to seek help); as well, support allocation of resources to reinforce processes of therapeutic communication between professional groups that were identified in this study to foster collaborative relations with patients.