Cancer Survivorship Issues: A Survey of Patients in India.AIIMS Study (CANSURVIVE)

It is estimated that approximately 25 million people are living as cancer survivors worldwide. The cancer survivors are those individuals who live beyond a cancer diagnosis and its therapy. Within the existing health care system, the cancer care models are largely focused on diagnostic methods, treatment aspects, cure, and disease failure and survival rates. There is very little research and intervention approaches for the after-effects of cancer diagnosis and treatments for an individual cancer patient. Cancer survivors are at increased risk of developing various physical and psychosocial conditions, which require to be identified and attended within the cancer care system. In the developing countries like India, the cancer cure rates are improving due to improvements in comprehensive diagnostic and treatment strategies. Cancer survivorship research will be valuable to enhance our understanding and care approaches to these vulnerable individuals in our society. There is lack of evaluation tools which can completely fit to assess all issues such as physical, social, financial, mental aspects of a cancer survivor.

Hence the investigators of this observational study have prepared an empirical cancer survivorship questionnaire (CSQ) which will document the patient's disease and treatment details and obtain subjective responses from the patient(and/or family care giver) related to the physical, functional, social, economic and mental aspects of daily living of a cancer survivor. In order to assess the mental status of the survivors, the investigators have also included the widely used and internationally accepted MINI (Mini-international neuropsychiatry interview) version along with the CSQ in this survey. Researchers and clinicians working in non-profit and academic setting such as this institution are allowed to make copies of this MINI questionnaire for the purpose of clinical and research use. For the present study, MINI version is suitably modified to exclude the items which are already in the CSQ, and certain items are reframed for the socio-cultural requirement. Both the CSQ (45 items) and MINI-modified (13 items) will be applied simultaneously in this survey as a direct face to face response documentation from the patient (cancer survivor), along with his/her family member. Patients will be chosen for this cross-sectional survey during the follow-up visit to a cancer clinic of this hospital, at least 3 months after the completion of cancer diagnosis and therapy. Each participant is expected to complete the survey at the first encounter, however, a provision is made to report any missing information at later visit.

An interim analysis will be carried out after the survey of first 50 patients to observe the trends in the findings. However, this will not impact the further accrual, except for making some changes in the survey parameters if at all needed.