Understanding cancer survivors' unmet needs through an interdisciplinary team-based approach to research

Developing responsive clinical, social, and policy services to meet the needs of the growing population of cancer survivors necessitates understanding the cancer experiences from short and long-term survivors themselves. Cancer-focused surveys typically offer survivors the opportunity to respond to both closed and open-ended questions. Yet, the experiential knowledge to be gained from qualitative survey data is often overlooked in deference to quantitative analyses. We present a systematic analytic method and our preliminary findings of unmet needs of cancer survivors (N=2,219) who provided narrative responses on the American Cancer Society's (ACS) National Quality of Life Survey. We describe the collaborative work of an interdisciplinary research team (nursing, psychology, social work, and public health researchers) in developing a coding paradigm for this unusually large set of qualitative data. Lessons learned while navigating the challenges and benefits inherent to inter-professional collaboration will be discussed including epistemological stance, emergent themes and our use of mixed methods of data interpretation and analysis. Preliminary findings suggest that regardless of whether cancer survivors were two, five, or ten years post-treatment unmet needs persisted. Cancer survivors experienced unmet needs across multiple dimensions (e.g., physical, emotional, social support, education/information needs, financial and access to health care). Moreover, personal control emerged as a common theme underlying the broader dimensions of unmet needs. Adequate address of the needs of survivors warrants a systematic and rigorous analysis of data, both quantitative and qualitative. Our experiences and the processes developed will benefit other mixed-method and interdisciplinary team projects.