Abstract:
Background: Patients with cancer have a wide range of unmet supportive care needs throughout
the disease course. Identifying these unmet needs is important for ensuring their needs throughout
the cancer treatment journey and for improving patient care and quality of life.
Objective: This study aimed to assess unmet supportive care needs and associated factors among
adult cancer patients at the Jimma Medical Center, Oromia, southwest Ethiopia, in 2023.
Methods: A cross-sectional study design was employed among 261 adult cancer patients from
May, 1 to June,1 2023 at Jimma Medical Center. A simple random sampling technique was used
to recruit participants. Data were entered into Epi-Data V.4.6 and were exported to SPSS V.26
for analysis. The binary logistic regression model was used to describe the association between
dependent and independent variables. Both crude and adjusted odds ratio along with 95% CI was
estimated to measure the strength of association. P-values less than 0.05 were considered
statistically significant.
Results: out of 261 sampled patients with cancer, participants were involved in this study giving
a response rate of 98.5%. The mean age of the study participants was 44 ± 13.141. The overall
unmet need mean score was highest in the psychological domain is 87.1%, physical domain at
79.1%, and lastly, sexual need domain. Age, marital status, health insurance, financial problems,
side effects of treatment, and quality of life were statistically significantly associated with unmet
supportive care needs at (p < 0.05).
Conclusion and Recommendation: The findings of this study show the unmet needs of supportive
care needs were high across each domain particularly highest in the psychological need domain.
Therefore, healthcare providers should pay due attention to young age, being married, not being
insured, having financial problems and treatment side effects, and low quality of life through
individualized patient-centered care to meet their needs.
