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Meeting Cancer Survivors' Psychosocial Health Needs: A Conversation with Dr. Patricia Ganz
June 7, 2022, by NCI Staff
The impact of cancer and its treatment is undeniably stressful. And although many people recover well, about 25% of cancer survivors have persistent problems, including anxiety, depression, and other psychological and social (psychosocial) distress.
In this interview, Patricia Ganz, M.D., of UCLA’s Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center, discusses psychosocial distress in cancer survivors and the challenges and opportunities in this area. Dr. Ganz has dedicated much of her career to the study of cancer survivorship; she was on the Institute of Medicine (now the National Academies) committee that published the 2008 report, Cancer Care for the Whole Patient: Meeting Psychosocial Health Needs.
Do you get the impression that most clinicians think about the mental health needs of cancer survivors?
Most clinicians would like to be thinking about these things. However, in the usual short follow-up visits, the appointment is more focused on a patient’s physical symptoms and what needs to be done to follow up on the cancer. So, often the topic of a person’s mental health needs does not come up unless the patient is very anxious or looks depressed. This is especially true for people who have had more intense or complex cancer treatment, where their physical symptoms and the need for follow-up tend to drive the conversation...