Interaction between professionals and cancer survivors in the context of Brazilian and Canadian care

OBJECTIVE: analyze cancer survivors’ reports about their communication with health professional team members and describe the similarities and differences in interactional patterns between Brazilian and Canadian health care contexts. METHOD: This study adopted a qualitative health research approach to secondary analysis, using interpretive description as the methodology, allowing us to elaborate a new research question and look at the primary data from a different perspective. There were in total eighteen participants; all of them were adults and elderly diagnosed with urologic cancer. After being organized and read, the data sets were classified into categories, and an analytic process was performed through inductive thematic analysis. RESULTS: This resulted in three categories of findings which we have framed as: Communication between professional and survivor; The symptoms, the doubts, the questions; and Actions and reaction. CONCLUSION: This comparative study allowed us to bring to the attention of health professionals, especially nurses, findings regarding effective communication, humanization and empathy, supporting both inside and outside support groups, giving pieces of advice, and advocating for the survivor as is necessary. The study also showed the importance of self-development of these professionals as they fight for better quality in the health system for their patients.