Return to Work in Cancer Survivors: A Pilot Study

描述（由申请人提供）：对于工作年龄的癌症幸存者，在癌症治疗期间或之后重返带薪工作的能力可能对生活质量产生重大影响。然而，临床、个人或社会特征对癌症后重返工作（RTW）的影响知之甚少。这项研究的长期目标是确定影响RTW的可改变的临床和社会心理因素，并评估干预措施，以促进癌症幸存者的RTW。该项目有两个具体目的：1)对成年癌症幸存者进行定性研究，以表征对他们决定RTW的显着域；2)开发和试点测试一项由采访者管理的关于工作结果和影响工作决策的领域的调查。研究的两个阶段的癌症幸存者将从科罗拉多中央癌症登记处抽取，并根据年龄、社会经济地位和临床预后进行分层。定性调查将对75-90名癌症幸存者进行，他们将完成半结构化访谈，这些访谈将被转录和定性分析，以确定影响RTW决策的重要领域。根据定性调查的结果，将设计一项实验性的定量调查。这项试点调查将在从癌症登记处抽取的300名癌症幸存者中进行测试。这一探索性项目的结果将用于对癌症幸存者进行更广泛的调查，和/或确定可在随后的研究中检验的加强RTW的干预措施的关键组成部分。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): For working-age cancer survivors, the ability to return to paid work during or after cancer treatment may have substantial impact on quality of life. Little is known about the clinical, personal, or social characteristics that mediate return to work (RTW) after cancer, however. The long-term goal of the research initiated through this exploratory grant is to identify modifiable clinical and psychosocial factors that affect RTW, and to evaluate interventions to facilitate RTW for cancer survivors. This project has two specific aims: 1) to conduct a qualitative study of adult cancer survivors to characterize the domains that are salient to their decisions about RTW; and 2) to develop and pilot test an interviewer-administered survey of work outcomes and the domains that affect work decisions. Cancer survivors for both phases of the study will be drawn from the Colorado Central Cancer Registry, and stratified on age, socioeconomic status, and clinical prognosis. The qualitative survey will be administered to 75-90 cancer survivors who will complete semi-structured interviews that will be transcribed and qualitatively analyzed to identify important domains affecting RTW decisions. Based on the findings of the qualitative survey, a pilot quantitative survey will be designed. The pilot survey will be tested in 300 cancer survivors drawn from the cancer registry. The results of this exploratory project will be used to develop a more extensive survey of cancer survivors, and/or to identify the critical components of interventions to enhance RTW that can be tested in subsequent research.