Oncologists still don’t feel fully confident discussing the financial impacts of cancer with their patients and are less likely to initiate conversations on the topic than either social workers or nurses, a survey has found.
The research on behalf of the Clinical Oncology Society of Australia’s financial toxicity working group comes amid growing concern about the costs of treatment and the effects of illness leading to unemployment and financial hardship.
Run last year, the COSA poll found just a fifth of oncologists felt very comfortable discussing patients’ financial or employment difficulties, while 44% said they lacked appropriate information or resources on the topic.
Some 70% of specialists admitted to only occasionally speaking to patients about their money concerns, saying they typically delayed conversations until the time of treatment.
This was connected to a widespread “myth” that little could be done to assist patients in financial distress, the researchers wrote in the Asia-Pacific Journal of Clinical Oncology.
That was despite broad awareness that many patients were experiencing financial challenges, with 42% of the 277 health professionals who completed the poll believing it was in issue for the majority of their patients.
They noted that non-doctors in the survey were generally more confident in having financial conversations with patients, saying 74% of social workers and 39% of nurses had reported feeling very comfortable when the topic came up.
Doctors were also far less likely to have ongoing financial discussions with patients throughout their cancer journey compared to the other two professions, the authors said.
“Unsurprisingly, social workers were the most engaged as their role requires the skills and confidence to initiate conversations as well as the knowledge about resources and information that would help patients,” they wrote.