Psychological Impact of Major Sarcoma Surgery v.2
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Exploring the Psychological Impact of Major Sarcoma Surgery: An Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis of the Patient's Experience
IRAS ID
218540
Contact name
Rhea Asfaw
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
University of Birmingham
Duration of Study in the UK
0 years, 5 months, 5 days
Research summary
What is the psychological impact of major sarcoma surgery?
Sarcomas are a rare type of cancer that effect around 1% of the UK population (Sarcoma UK, 2015). Surgery is recommended as the principal treatment option for soft tissue and bone sarcomas (Grimer et. al, 2010; Gerrand et. al, 2016), and is often extensive and aggressive contributing to higher levels of physical disability compared with other cancers (Tang et.al, 2012).
Despite this, the psychological aspects of sarcoma have largely been overlooked in the literature (Segall et. al, 2010), and the psychological aspects of sarcoma surgery even more so. However, recent research suggests that distress, depression, and stress scores are highest during the treatment phase for sarcoma (Tang et. al, 2015).
Cancer patients in receipt of pre-operative psychological intervention, prehabilitation, report less psychological distress and comparatively better psychological wellbeing than their counterparts (Tsimopoulou et. al, 2015). However, this is an area that has not been explored in the sarcoma population.Paredes et.al (2011) suggest that qualitative research is the next step to explore the lived experience of sarcoma patients, and so the current study will use semi-structured interviews with patients who have been treated surgically for their sarcoma, to explore their psychological and emotional distress, to more fully understand what they experience. Participants will be identified by the clinical team postoperatively, and will be invited to take part in an interview about their experience. Their interview data will undergo subsequent qualitative analysis.
It is hoped that the results will be used to inform prehabilitation interventions for sarcoma patients, which could potentially identify, modify, and alleviate preoperative psychological distress, thus also improving surgical outcomes.
The design of any effective pre-operative prehabilitation intervention will benefit from first thoroughly exploring the lived experience of this population.
REC name
Wales REC 4
REC reference
17/WA/0092
Date of REC Opinion
10 Apr 2017
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion