- Cancer patients or other patients with somatic illness
- A need for practical help, e.g. buying groceries, bringing a dinner, snow shuffeling during winter time.
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Hi,
Thank you for getting in touch. The research FORUM Research conducted for Macmillan Cancer Support highlights a very wide range of unmet needs - emotional, financial, informational and practical. There are certainly needs during treatment (such as help with transport, food shopping and cooking, help with domestic chores, being accompanied during appointments, someone to look after children or elderly parents during hospital visits and after treatments, negotiating with employers, accessing welfare, exchanging experiences with other cancer patients, etc), but the most pressing needs often came after treatment, when most patients feel suddenly abandoned and left to their own devices, but have to deal with the fear of cancer spreading or a recurrence, as well as the many long-term effects of cancer and cancer treatment on their body, their mind and their life.
If you tell me more about the reasons behind the question and the uses you have for the evidence, I may be able to be more specific in my response.
Best regards,
Marie-Claude
Thank you so much, Marie-Claude, and sorry about my late reply. I have read some of the FORUM "no one overlooked", and it provided great insight to some potential target groups. It is interesting that patients feel "abandoned" after treatment, and I sure can imagine that this is very applicable to the patients I try to reach as well. The project I am developing is created to meet the uncovered needs of cancer patients regarding practical help. The project may choose to narrow the target group. Currently, the main objective is to provie a new service to cancer patients, their closest relatives, and those patients that are struggeling with late effects of the treatment. After studying some Norwegian reports, I have found five groups of cancer patients that we know have an unmet need of practical help:
1) Families (especially single parents with young children)
2) Single people of all ages
3) Elderly (especially those that live alone)
4) People with low education and people having a physically demanding work
5) People with multiple diseases and a heavy treatment burden
As of today, I have focused most on cancer patients. However, your insight has provided me with lots of motivation to keep on looking to find the correct gap to cover. It might be wise to look into the group of patients that are finished with treatment. Do you have other suggestions to how I may choose the best target group for a project like this? Who needs the help the most? And who would actually accept the help?
Very grateful for all suggestions!
Best wishes,
Gunn-Berit
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