To document the current clinical practice in 2017 for assessment of supportive care needs and provision of supportive care to women with gynecological cancer and their caregivers in Australia, and to identify the main enablers and barriers to care provision.

A total of 64 health professionals who care for Australian women with gynecological cancer responded to an electronic survey which explored their use of needs assessment, service-level processes and protocols for support service provision, and identified enablers and barriers to provision of care to both patients and caregivers. Eight respondents underwent an additional in-depth interview to elaborate on enablers, barriers, and gaps in the provision of supportive care.

Mostly, needs assessment for women and caregivers was part of current practice but done without validated tools or a checklist. Only 30% of respondents reported having documented referral pathways. Most respondents simply recorded a plan for meeting needs within the patients’ medical record (63% for patients; 46% for caregivers) rather than using a formalized care plan (15% for patients; 6% for caregivers). The interviewees’ comments supported survey results that having sufficient time to discuss issues was both the most important enabling factor and the greatest barrier to successful supportive care provision. The interviewees further discussed variations in needs based on age, cultural background, and phases within the cancer care continuum, and that best practice supportive care should involve a multidisciplinary team and customizable protocols.

There is much room for improvement in the assessment of needs and provision of supportive care to women with gynecological cancer and their caregivers. Approaches to optimize use of consultation time (e.g., needs assessment tools and referral protocols) are necessary. Flexibility in the form and mode of delivery of support may be required to meet diverse personal preferences and incorporate caregivers.

Our aim was to compare changes in emotional processing by women newly diagnosed with gynecological cancer enrolled in either a coping and communication skills intervention (CCI) or a supportive counseling (SC) intervention. We examined the association between in-session emotional processing and patient-rated therapeutic progress.

Three therapy sessions with 201 patients were rated for the depth of emotional processing (peak and mode) during emotion episodes (EEs) using the Experiencing Rating Scale (EXP). Participants completed measures of dispositional emotional expressivity, depressive symptoms, and cancer-related distress before treatment began, as well as ratings of perceived progress in therapy after each session.

Peak EXP ratings averaged between 2.7 and 3.1, indicating that women discussed events, their emotional reactions, and their private experiences in sessions. A small proportion of patients had high levels of processing, indicating deeper exploration of the meaning of their feelings and experiences. Women in SC were able to achieve a higher level of emotional processing during the middle and later sessions, and during cancer-related EEs in the later session. However, emotional processing was not significantly associated with a patient's perceived therapeutic progress with SC. In the CCI group, higher levels of emotional processing were associated with greater session progress, suggesting that it may play an important role in patient-rated treatment outcomes.

Newly diagnosed gynecological cancer patients are able to attend to their emotions and personal experiences, particularly when discussing cancer-related issues during both short-term SC and prescriptive coping skills interventions.

Women with gynecological cancer have been reported as very high users of complementary medicine. The goal of our study was to explore the perceptions of patients with an advanced gynecological cancer who use naturopathy as complementary medicine. We were looking more specifically at patients' opinions on the effect of naturopathy on their quality of life and its relation to conventional oncological treatments.

This pilot qualitative study used semistructured interviews, and data were analyzed using grounded theory and qualitative methods. The main criterion for inclusion in the study was the use of naturopathy as a treatment complementary to conventional cancer treatment for gynecological metastatic cancer on the oncology day care unit.

Six patients were included until data saturation. They express the physical and psychological impact of treatments and disease. Usually, chemotherapy is perceived as something that may be curative or may at least lead to remission. Unlike conventional treatments, naturopathy is not perceived as drugs, and it is seen as a way to relieve symptoms, improve well-being, and as a way of enabling them to take an active decision-making role in their care journey. Patients want to have more information about naturopathy.

This study suggests that patients are aware of the benefits of a specific cancer treatment as chemotherapy, but they resort to naturopathy for symptom control, and also to take a more active role during treatment.