PD06-10: Breast Cancer Patient Distress Associated with Difficulties Navigating the Costs Associated with Care: Results from a National Education Program.

Compounding the stressors related with a diagnosis of breast cancer can be the associated direct and indirect costs of cancer care. To address this need, the Cancer Support Community (CSC) in 2009 developed an evidence-based, professionally-led national education workshop for cancer patients and caregivers entitled Frankly Speaking About Cancer: Coping with the Cost of Care. As part of this workshop, participants completed a survey describing their experiences coping with the cost of cancer care. To date, responses from 465 participants (representing 46 workshops) have been analyzed. Of those participants, 105 are women diagnosed with breast cancer. Though workshop participants were affected by a wide variety of cancer diagnoses, half of those with cancer attending the workshop (50%) were affected by breast cancer. No significant differences between breast cancer patients and individuals with other cancers were found. Analyses are based on responses from breast cancer patients only. Participants’ pre-workshop rating of their understanding about the financial aspects of their breast cancer care was low ( m =2.8, s.d. =1.0) and was significantly less than their level of knowledge post-workshop ( m =4.1, s.d. =0.7, p Most attendees (72.8%) reported experiencing some degree of emotional distress from trying to manage cancer care costs, and nearly one-third of attendees (30.1%) reported significant distress. Most (64.8%) reported that their healthcare team did not discuss financial aspects of care with them. Of attendees whose team did discuss it with them, typically it was a social worker, physician, or nurse. Of those who had this discussion, only 34% reported that this information was actually useful to them. Not surprisingly then, attendees reported they have looked elsewhere for information about managing the costs of care, such as patient support organizations (40.2%), the Internet (43.5%), and other patients (41.3%). A positive to arise from the workshop is that most participants (69.9%) reported the intention to discuss financial aspects of their care with their healthcare team based on what they had learned from the workshop. Intention to have this discussion with their healthcare team was both positively correlated with having experienced emotional distress about the cost of their care ( r =.29, p r =-.28, p Citation Information: Cancer Res 2011;71(24 Suppl):Abstract nr PD06-10.