Promoting Self-Efficacy among Head and Neck Cancer Patients

Current survivorship visits at the Stanford head and neck oncology program are not standardized to address ongoing post-treatment sequelae. The objectives of this study help to address whether current non-standardized visits actually help to empower patients to self-manage their chronic diagnosis of head and neck cancer by measuring their self-efficacy levels before and after their post-treatment survivorship visit. Given the convenience sampling method, 17 patients were enrolled in this quasi-experimental pilot study. Demographic information was collected for each patient: gender, ethnicity, smoker status, and age. Head and neck cancer patients would first be surveyed before and after their follow up visit using the data collection tools: Chronic Illness Management Self-Efficacy Scale or the 6-item General Self-efficacy scale. One sided t tests and ANOVA were used for to compute and examine the statistical significance of improved self-efficacy values. Current non-standardized survivorship follow- up visits designed with a written treatment summary have shown to improve self-efficacy levels. Age and smoking status were found to be statistically significant confounding factors. Transition survivorship visits should aim to improve self-efficacy levels among head and neck cancer survivors. American Cancer Society guidelines for follow up care can guide the conversations of survivorship issues and facilitate communication between cancer specialists and community providers