Poster Presentation 2025 National Cancer Survivorship Conference

Cancer survivorship care in general practice: a national survey (#66)

Carolyn Ee 1 , Kylie Vuong 2 , Joel Rhee 3 , Elysia Thornton-Benko 4 , Julien Vos 5 , Rose Fok 6 , Divya Babu 2 , Chad Han 1 , Larissa Nekhlyudov 7
  1. Flinders University, Adelaide, South Australia, Australia
  2. Griffith University, Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia
  3. University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW, Australia
  4. Bondi Road Doctors, Sydney, NSW, Australia
  5. Amsterdam University Medical Center, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
  6. National University of Singapore, Singapore
  7. Harvard Medical School, Boston, USA

Background

There is increasing demand for involvement of GPs in cancer survivorship. This is the first quantitative study to evaluate GPs’ comfort in providing survivorship care in Australia.

 

Methods

An anonymous cross-sectional online survey was distributed to GPs/GPs in training practising in Australia from July 2024 via professional networks and social media. Questions assessed GP overall comfort in caring for adult cancer survivors across five domains of quality survivorship care (surveillance, health promotion/disease prevention, and management of physical effects, psychosocial effects and comorbid chronic conditions) and comfort in providing care in five clinical scenarios with varying levels of risk. Descriptive statistics were used to identify association of comfort with providing care and demographic/practice variables. Survey data collection is ongoing and will close in December 2024.

 

Results

178 GPs/GPs in training provided responses as of November 2024. Just over half of respondents were somewhat/extremely comfortable with providing other health promotion (57%), counselling about diet and exercise (52%), and providing screening recommendations for other cancers (51%). Respondents were least comfortable with managing sexual dysfunction due to cancer/treatment and managing physical effects (37% somewhat/extremely uncomfortable). Across risk scenarios, comfort levels ranged from 31% for managing physical effects in a high-risk adult survivor of childhood cancer to 57% for managing physical effects in advanced lung cancer. GPs were most consistently comfortable with providing health promotion and disease prevention (47% - 53%) while there was more variation in comfort with managing psychosocial effects (33% in high-risk colorectal cancer to 52% in high-risk adult survivor of childhood cancer).

 

Implications for practice/policy

Comfort levels did not vary significantly across risk scenarios. GPs consistently report feeling most comfortable with health promotion, and chronic condition management. The findings from our study should inform medical school/GP training curriculum and inform service providers/policy makers involved in collaborative care of cancer survivors.