Unmet Supportive Care Need And Associated Factors Among Adult Cancer Patients At Jimma Medical Center, Oromia, Southwest Ethiopia, 2023

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.