Supportive care needs and associated factors among Chinese cancer survivors: a cross-sectional study

To investigate the unmet supportive care needs (SCNs) of Chinese cancer survivors and to identify factors associated with the unmet SCNs of cancer survivors.

A cross-sectional survey of Chinese cancer survivors was conducted using validated scales of the Cancer Survivors Unmet Needs scale (CaSUN), physical symptom concerns (Cancer Survivors Survey of Needs-CSSN subscale), and a single-item measure of global quality of life (QoL) perception.

There were 330 participants, with a mean score of 7.1 (0-10) in overall QoL. The reported rate of the 19 symptom concerns ranged from 19.4 to 72.2%. The level of unmet SCNs (moderate and strong need) ranged from 12.1 to 59.1%. The top five unmet needs included concerns about the cancer re-occurring (59.1%), accessing the best medical care (52.7%), accessing complementary therapy services (51.5%), changes to beliefs (48.2%), and survivor expectations (47.6%). The strength of unmet SCNs was negatively correlated with participant age (P < 0.05), average time since diagnosis (P < 0.05), and overall QoL (P < 0.01) and positively correlated with all symptom concerns (all P < 0.001).

Study findings call attention to cancer survivors' unmet SCNs and related factors. Underscored areas in developing survivorship care included paying special attention to existential survivorship, empowering survivor management of chronic symptoms, particularly for younger survivors, as well as for survivors with poor QoL, and those with a shorter time since diagnosis. This tailored survivorship care should be developed and delivered by a multidisciplinary team to support cancer services, with a greater capacity to deliver individualized, unmet SCN-driven care to survivors.