Exposure to suicidality in professionals working with oncology patients: an online survey
- Objective: To explore and describe exposure to suicidality in healthcare providers (HCP) working with oncological patients. Special emphasis was put on five central aspects from the HCPs perspective: Exposure, Confidence, Expertise, Distress, and Education. Methods: A 48‐item online questionnaire was developed and distributed to HCPs working with cancer patients. Three hundred fifty‐four answered questionnaires were analyzed. Results: Overall 83.3% of HCPs reported to have encountered at least one suicidal patient in the last year. Feeling confident in talking about suicidality was reported by 72.1% of HCPs, with 71.2% of nurses reporting feeling insecure compared with only 5.1% of psychotherapists. Similarly, 22.3% of HCPs felt overwhelmed when confronted with a patient who substantiated his suicidality during consultation. A lack of personal knowledge concerning suicidality in general and in oncological patients in particular, was reported by 39.6% and 49.8%, respectively. In total, 88.1% of HCPs reported feeling distressed when confronted with suicidality, while 81.1% of participants wanted further education regarding suicidality in cancer patients despite that 73.2% had already received some sort of psycho‐oncology education. Conclusions: Despite the well‐documented fact of elevated suicide rates in cancer patients, there remain deficits in knowledge, which induce feelings of insecurity and helplessness in HCPs. There is a demand for further education concerning the treatment of suicidal cancer patients. Therefore, special curricula addressing this topic should be devised. A general debate about suicidality in cancer patients could help raise awareness of this problem and generate means of prevention.
Author: | Bianca SenfORCiDGND, Paula Maiwurm, Jens Fettel |
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URN: | urn:nbn:de:hebis:30:3-571961 |
DOI: | https://doi.org/10.1002/pon.5479 |
ISSN: | 1099-1611 |
Parent Title (English): | Psycho‐Oncology |
Publisher: | Wiley-Blackwell |
Place of publication: | New York, NY [u.a.] |
Document Type: | Article |
Language: | English |
Date of Publication (online): | 2020/07/16 |
Date of first Publication: | 2020/07/16 |
Publishing Institution: | Universitätsbibliothek Johann Christian Senckenberg |
Release Date: | 2020/12/07 |
Tag: | cancer; confidence; distress; expertise; exposure; further education; oncology; online survey; psycho-oncology; suicidality |
Volume: | 29 |
Issue: | 10 |
Page Number: | 10 |
First Page: | 1620 |
Last Page: | 1629 |
HeBIS-PPN: | 476204445 |
Institutes: | Medizin / Medizin |
Dewey Decimal Classification: | 6 Technik, Medizin, angewandte Wissenschaften / 61 Medizin und Gesundheit / 610 Medizin und Gesundheit |
Sammlungen: | Universitätspublikationen |
Licence (English): | Creative Commons - Namensnennung-Nicht kommerziell 4.0 |