Purpose
The increasing number of people living longer with advanced cancer presents unique physical, psychosocial, financial, legal, practical and complex care needs. Supportive care interventions aim to address these needs by improving symptom management, promoting wellbeing, enhancing quality of life, and potentially improving prognosis. To integrate supportive care interventions into clinical practice, a comprehensive review of existing studies is needed. This scoping review maps the evidence on non-pharmacological supportive care interventions for people with advanced cancer and identifies gaps to inform future research.
Methods
We systematically searched four electronic databases—CINAHL, Medline, Cochrane, and PsycINFO—for peer-reviewed original research on non-pharmacological supportive care interventions for adults with advanced cancer, published from January 1, 2013, to July 1, 2024
Results
Out of 3,716 studies, 84 publications met the inclusion criteria. These studies were categorised into key supportive care domains: physical activity, psychosocial support, patient care and autonomy, multimodal approaches and others. Most publications focused on interventions addressing physical and psychosocial needs, showing benefits such as reduced fatigue, pain, and improved mood. However, significant gaps were found in research on interventions addressing practical needs essential to autonomy, including health system and information needs, patient care and support, and financial needs.
Conclusion
Mapping the studies to the needs of the advanced cancer population showed that domains with greatest unmet needs have the fewest interventions available. Our scoping review suggests that non-pharmacological supportive care interventions can improve the wellbeing and quality of life of people living with advanced cancer. However, addressing methodological limitations requires further large-scale, multi-centre studies focusing on the identified gaps to inform the implementation of suitable supportive care programs.