Nurses attitudes and practices towards provision of survivorship care for people with a haematological cancer on completion of treatment

The aim of this study was to assess cancer nurses’ perceptions of responsibility, confidence levels and practice in regards to survivorship care. 310 cancer nurses participated in the cross-sectional, online survey. There were 17 survivorship care items on in the survey. The three items that received the lowest confidence scores were discussion of fertility issues, discussion of employment/financial issues and discussing how to identify signs of cancer recurrence. Furthermore, one of the three least performed survivorship care items was communicating survivorship care with the primary health care team (i.e. general practitioners). Cancer nurses play a vital role in survivorship care, however this study shows that there are variations in both practice and confidence of implementation of survivorship care practices. Interventions that focus on enhancing the capability and confidence of cancer nurses and bridging the gap between cancer nursing and primary care have the potential to improve the quality of survivorship care.