Doctoral Candidate Helen Nichols, shown here, and Professor Swanberg have a new paper published in the Journal of Cancer Education that explores low-wage earning breast cancer survivors’ experiences communicating with their oncology team about cancer and employment issues.
Using data from interviews with low-wage earning breast cancer survivors, the authors found that survivors’ experiences communicating with their oncology team about employment and cancer focused on three dimensions of patient-provider communication: extent, quality, and content. Over 70% of respondents reported no communication or only routine communication with their providers regarding work; three quarters of women reported poor or standard communication quality, and content of work-related communication covered scheduling issues, work absences, continuing to work during treatment, and financial concerns. More details can be found at link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13187-018-1338-4.