Unmet need in patients with multiple myeloma- a cross sectional study from India

Abstract

Author(s): Avaronnan Manuprasad, Vineetha Raghavan, Sajeev Kumar PB, Zoheb Raj, Praveen Kumar Shenoy, Chandran K Nair

Background: Unmet supportive care needs in multiple myeloma is an important but less well studied problem. This study was conducted to assess the unmet needs of patients with multiple myeloma treated at a tertiary cancer centre in India. Materials and Methods: This is a cross sectional study done at a tertiary cancer centre in India. All patients diagnosed with Multiple myeloma who were on disease modifying agents for more than a year and attended the OPD during 15th July 2015 to 30th July 2015 were included in the study. Informed consent was taken. CaSUN (Cancer Survivors Unmet Needs Measure) questionnaire was given to all the participants and a semi structured interview was done by a trained rater. Results: 63 patients (male=26, female=37 ) with median age 60 years ( range 34 years to 80 years ) participated in the study. 99.6% of the questions were attempted by the cohort (7 out of 1764 questions were unattempted). At least one unmet need was reported by 95% (60/63) of the patients. Mean number of unmet need per patients was 7 (0-18). The five highest unmet needs reported by myeloma patients were “need to reduce stress in my life”-65%, “need to address concerns of cancer coming back”-56%, “need to handle social/work situations”-46%, “need for emotional support”-51% and “need to move on with my life”-51%. Conclusion: Unmet needs in myeloma patients were significantly higher when compared to that reported in western studies (26.5%) and that in cancer patients in general (40%). This indicates an urgent need to improve the psychosocial and emotional supportive care in myeloma patients in low and middle income countries. More studies in larger number of patients need to be conducted to accurately assess the unmet needs in this population.

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