The advice patients want from medical professionals on alternative cancer therapies

This study explores the willingness of cancer patients to seek advice on alternative therapies from medical professionals and the wants of patients who have adopted those therapies from those professionals. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 44 cancer patients whose informed consent had been obtained. It was found that 24 of the 44 subjects (54.5%) had asked their doctor for advice on alternative therapies. The most common reasons for requesting such advice were "concern that the alternative therapy might interfere with the conventional therapies" and "the desire to gain expert information before adopting an alternative therapy." The main reasons for not requesting advice were "concern that the doctor might disagree with the decision to use alternative therapies" and "concern that consultation might interfere with the trusting doctor-patient relationship." It was also found that 8 of the 44 subjects (18.2%) had asked a nurse for advice on the alternative therapies. The most common reason for requesting such advice was "the desire to gain expert information before adopting an alternative therapy." The most common reasons for not requesting advice was "the concern that a nurse might consider such an inquiry to be inappropriate" and "the concern that nurses are too busy to address such requests." Patients reported wanting the following: "improvements to the medical system that would allow the choice of various therapies," "professional advice on whether to pursue alternative therapies," and "encouragement to enhance one\u27 s will to live." These results suggest that cancer patients who adopt alternative therapies need the following: encouragement to enhance their will to live, nursing care that includes appropriate information to help patients make their own decisions based on their wishes and values, and efforts to maintain trusting relationships between patients and medical professionals.国立情報学研究所の「学術雑誌公開支援事業」により電子化されました