Psychosocial Concerns in the Postoperative Oncology Patient

To describe psychosocial concerns associated with the postoperative cancer patient and to discuss current psychosocial evidence-based approaches to manage these psychosocial concerns.

Published peer-reviewed literature.

The postoperative phase of cancer care may be associated with a range of overlapping acute and chronic psychosocial concerns related to the surgery itself, the cancer diagnosis, and the need for ongoing cancer treatments. The postoperative period of cancer care represents an essential time to detect unmet psychosocial concerns and begin timely interventions for these concerns.

Nurses are in a key position to detect, triage, refer, or manage psychosocial concerns in the postoperative patient with cancer. Current psychosocial evidence-based approaches may be used by surgical oncology nurses or other nurses who care for cancer patients during postoperative recovery.