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The COVID-19 pandemic: a new epoch and fresh challenges for cancer patients and caregivers—a descriptive cross-sectional study

PURPOSE: Cancer patients and their caregivers are overwhelmed with features of uncertainty, fear, shock, worry, anxiety, sadness, and grief. To add on to their misery, the COVID-19 pandemic has severely afflicted the cancer care delivery. The study was conducted to observe the challenges faced by ca...

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Autores principales: Mishra, Seema, Gupta, Raghav, Bhatnagar, Sushma, Garg, Rakesh, Bharati, Sachidanand Jee, Kumar, Vinod, Gupta, Nishkarsh
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Springer Berlin Heidelberg 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8449210/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34536134
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00520-021-06564-4
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author Mishra, Seema
Gupta, Raghav
Bhatnagar, Sushma
Garg, Rakesh
Bharati, Sachidanand Jee
Kumar, Vinod
Gupta, Nishkarsh
author_facet Mishra, Seema
Gupta, Raghav
Bhatnagar, Sushma
Garg, Rakesh
Bharati, Sachidanand Jee
Kumar, Vinod
Gupta, Nishkarsh
author_sort Mishra, Seema
collection PubMed
description PURPOSE: Cancer patients and their caregivers are overwhelmed with features of uncertainty, fear, shock, worry, anxiety, sadness, and grief. To add on to their misery, the COVID-19 pandemic has severely afflicted the cancer care delivery. The study was conducted to observe the challenges faced by cancer patients and their caregivers and to formulate strategies for oncological setups to overcome those challenges. METHODS: After obtaining institutional ethical clearance, a descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted to observe the challenges faced by patients and their caregivers at the level of various domains (physical, logistic, psychological, socioeconomic, and spiritual) who visited the outpatient and inpatient department of cancer pain and palliative care unit. The results were expressed in absolute numbers. RESULTS: Major challenges encountered were suffering from physical symptoms like pain, nausea, vomiting, dyspnea (90%), postponement of cancer treatment (80%), fear of contracting COVID infection due to hospital visit (93.5%), lack of accommodation (70%), and lack of spiritual clarity and hope (50%). CONCLUSIONS: Major challenges faced by patients were in physical and psychological domains, and those by caregivers were in socioeconomic domains and handling physical symptoms of their patients. It is imperative to recognize and be cognizant of the challenges faced by cancer patients and their caregivers. Health care setups should formulate strategies to alleviate these challenges and provide holistic care to cancer patients. These strategies will hold in good stead for future pandemics also.
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spelling pubmed-84492102021-09-20 The COVID-19 pandemic: a new epoch and fresh challenges for cancer patients and caregivers—a descriptive cross-sectional study Mishra, Seema Gupta, Raghav Bhatnagar, Sushma Garg, Rakesh Bharati, Sachidanand Jee Kumar, Vinod Gupta, Nishkarsh Support Care Cancer Original Article PURPOSE: Cancer patients and their caregivers are overwhelmed with features of uncertainty, fear, shock, worry, anxiety, sadness, and grief. To add on to their misery, the COVID-19 pandemic has severely afflicted the cancer care delivery. The study was conducted to observe the challenges faced by cancer patients and their caregivers and to formulate strategies for oncological setups to overcome those challenges. METHODS: After obtaining institutional ethical clearance, a descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted to observe the challenges faced by patients and their caregivers at the level of various domains (physical, logistic, psychological, socioeconomic, and spiritual) who visited the outpatient and inpatient department of cancer pain and palliative care unit. The results were expressed in absolute numbers. RESULTS: Major challenges encountered were suffering from physical symptoms like pain, nausea, vomiting, dyspnea (90%), postponement of cancer treatment (80%), fear of contracting COVID infection due to hospital visit (93.5%), lack of accommodation (70%), and lack of spiritual clarity and hope (50%). CONCLUSIONS: Major challenges faced by patients were in physical and psychological domains, and those by caregivers were in socioeconomic domains and handling physical symptoms of their patients. It is imperative to recognize and be cognizant of the challenges faced by cancer patients and their caregivers. Health care setups should formulate strategies to alleviate these challenges and provide holistic care to cancer patients. These strategies will hold in good stead for future pandemics also. Springer Berlin Heidelberg 2021-09-18 2022 /pmc/articles/PMC8449210/ /pubmed/34536134 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00520-021-06564-4 Text en © The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2021 This article is made available via the PMC Open Access Subset for unrestricted research re-use and secondary analysis in any form or by any means with acknowledgement of the original source. These permissions are granted for the duration of the World Health Organization (WHO) declaration of COVID-19 as a global pandemic.
spellingShingle Original Article
Mishra, Seema
Gupta, Raghav
Bhatnagar, Sushma
Garg, Rakesh
Bharati, Sachidanand Jee
Kumar, Vinod
Gupta, Nishkarsh
The COVID-19 pandemic: a new epoch and fresh challenges for cancer patients and caregivers—a descriptive cross-sectional study
title The COVID-19 pandemic: a new epoch and fresh challenges for cancer patients and caregivers—a descriptive cross-sectional study
title_full The COVID-19 pandemic: a new epoch and fresh challenges for cancer patients and caregivers—a descriptive cross-sectional study
title_fullStr The COVID-19 pandemic: a new epoch and fresh challenges for cancer patients and caregivers—a descriptive cross-sectional study
title_full_unstemmed The COVID-19 pandemic: a new epoch and fresh challenges for cancer patients and caregivers—a descriptive cross-sectional study
title_short The COVID-19 pandemic: a new epoch and fresh challenges for cancer patients and caregivers—a descriptive cross-sectional study
title_sort covid-19 pandemic: a new epoch and fresh challenges for cancer patients and caregivers—a descriptive cross-sectional study
topic Original Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8449210/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34536134
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00520-021-06564-4
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