Cancer survivors and their caregivers may have various unmet needs that are medically difficult to solve. Previous studies have suggested the relations between individuals’ backgrounds and their unmet needs. We conducted a large-scale analysis to clarify the influence of individuals’ backgrounds, primarily cancer type, on specific types of unmet needs. Using a mixed-methods approach, we analyzed records of first-time callers to a cancer-focused telephone consultation service that was provided by the Kanagawa Cancer Clinical Research Information Organization from October 2006 to May 2014. The qualitative approach concerned extracting unmet needs mentioned in each consultation and classifying them into themes of specific needs, while the quantitative approach comprised multi-variated analysis of the relationships between the frequency by which the needs in each theme arose and the associated callers’ backgrounds. A total of 1938 consultation cases were analyzed. In the qualitative analysis, the needs were classified into 16 themes. The mean number of unmet needs for each caller was 1.58 (standard deviation = 0.86). In the multi-variated analysis, caregivers for colorectal cancer survivors had a lower frequency of “emotional/mental health” needs (OR: 0.31, 95%CI: 0.11–0.88, p = 0.028) than did caregivers for breast-cancer survivors. Nevertheless, this was the only significant difference in needs frequency among callers (including survivors and their caregivers) with specific cancer types. Meanwhile, there significant difference in the frequency of occurrence of each unmet need theme was found among items concerning other background elements. Among survivors, sex was related to the frequency of needs among “physical” and “resources” themes, and “emotions/mental health”; their age group with “employment”; treatment course with “physical” and “resources” themes and “cure”; residence with “physical” themes; presence of symptom with “physical,” “education/information,” “resources,” “emotions/mental health,” and “cure” themes. This large-scale study suggests that cancer type is not a significant factor for specific unmet needs and that individuals’ backgrounds and presence of symptoms play a more important role. Through this study, it was found that instruments to predict people’s needs and a system to provide individualized cancer care across cancer types should be developed in the future.

中文翻译：

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个人背景对癌症幸存者和护理人员未满足需求的影响–混合方法分析

癌症幸存者及其看护者可能有医疗上难以解决的各种未满足需求。先前的研究表明，个人背景与其未满足的需求之间的关系。我们进行了大规模分析，以弄清个人背景（主要是癌症类型）对未满足需求的特定类型的影响。我们使用混合方法分析了2006年10月至2014年5月由神奈川县癌症临床研究信息组织提供的针对以癌症为中心的电话咨询服务的首次呼叫者的记录。定性方法涉及提取未满足的需求。每次咨询并将其分类为特定需求的主题，而定量方法包括对每个主题的需求出现的频率与相关呼叫者背景之间的关系进行多变量分析。总共分析了1938个咨询案例。在定性分析中，需求分为16个主题。每个呼叫者的未满足需求的平均数量为1.58（标准偏差= 0.86）。在多变量分析中，结直肠癌幸存者的护理人员对“情绪/心理健康”需求的频率低于乳腺癌幸存者的护理人员（OR：0.31，95％CI：0.11-0.88，p = 0.028）。然而，这是特定癌症类型的呼叫者（包括幸存者及其照料者）之间需求频率的唯一显着差异。与此同时，在涉及其他背景要素的项目中，发现每个未满足需求主题的发生频率存在显着差异。在幸存者中，性别与“身体”和“资源”主题以及“情绪/心理健康”主题中需求的频率有关；他们的“就业”年龄段；具有“物理”和“资源”主题以及“治愈”主题的治疗过程；以“身体”主题居住；出现“身体”，“教育/信息”，“资源”，“情绪/心理健康”和“治愈”主题的症状。这项大规模的研究表明，癌症类型不是满足特定需求的重要因素，个人背景和症状的出现更为重要。通过这项研究，