Primary care physicians’ knowledge and confidence in providing cancer survivorship care: a systematic review

GPs are instrumental in helping cancer survivors in their journey, from looking out for recurrences to following up on physical and psychosocial impacts of treatment. How assured do GPs feel in delivering this care? A systematic review examined over thirty papers (mostly from the US) that explored GPs’ perspectives on this topic. GPs were more confident in managing patients’ psychosocial effects compared to physical effects. GPs were also more knowledgeable in detecting recurrences rather than routine care for cancer survivors. Overal, levels of confidence were mixed across the cancer survivorship care domains. These findings highlight a need to further develop GPs’ skills and confidence in several areas continuing medical education or other types of interventions. This could potentially increase GPs’ capacity to deliver high quality cancer survivorship care.   Read the original article here.