Supportive Care Needs and its Relationship with Perceived Social Support in Cancer Survivors related to Tabriz Medical Center, 2013.

Abstract

Abstract: Background: Supportive care, is providing necessary services for life with or affected by cancer, in order to meet variety of patients' needs at all stages of the disease. in other words, providing an appropriate level of supportive care won't happen without good understanding of the needs of patients. In the meantime, it seems that one of the factors can be important in meeting the needs of survivors is social support. Since that in our country, any study has not conducted to investigate specifically the needs of cancer survivors and the influencing factors of their resolution, this study was performed with aim of investigating the relationship between supportive cares needs and perceived social support of cancer survivors. Methods: This descriptive –correlation study conducted in Ghazi –Tabatabaei hospital of Tabriz and an oncology physicians' office. Sample of research were 250 cancer survivors that tool was supportive care needs survey (SCNS –SF34) that consists of five scales (physical and daily activity, Psychological, Healthy and informative system, Supportive –care, Sexual). Also, perceived social support was evaluated with Zimt Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support Assessment (MSPSS). Data analysis was performed with SPSS software by descriptive and inferential statistics. Results: Results showed that cancer survivors have more unmet needs in all dimensions and the most unmet needs of them are Healthy and informative system and Psychological dimensions and the most met needs of them are Supportive –care and Sexual dimensions. Also, cancer survivors perceive high Social Support and they perceive the highest level of support from family in beginning and then from special peoples. Results also showed that with increasing social support, supportive care needs is reduced in all aspects (p<0.05). Conclusions: High levels of unmet needs survivors in all aspects indicates that a coherent and consistent planning is need for services, especially in informative and psychological dimension in order to meet the needs of cancer survivors. And since that social support is known as an effective factor, also can be used families support to facilitate this matter.