In the palliative oncology setting, genetic assessment may not impact on the patient's management but can be of vital importance to their surviving relatives. Despite care of the family being central to the ethos of palliative care, little is known about how hereditary aspects of cancer are addressed in this setting. This review aims to examine current practices, identify practice barriers and determine the genetic information and support needs of patients, family members and health providers.
Key databases were systematically searched to identify both quantitative and qualitative studies that addressed these aims. Data was extracted and coded using thematic analysis.
Eight studies were included for review. Suboptimal genetic practices were identified, with lack of knowledge and poor confidence amongst providers reported as barriers in both qualitative and quantitative studies. Providers expressed concern about the emotional impact of initiating these discussions late in the disease trajectory; however, qualitative interviews amongst palliative patients suggested there may be emotional benefits.
All lines of evidence suggest that genetics is currently missing from the palliative agenda, signifying lost opportunities for mutation detection, genetic counselling and appropriate risk management for surviving relatives. There is an urgent need for interventions to improve provider knowledge and awareness of genetic referral pathways and for research into the genetic information and support needs of palliative care patients.
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 14. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 06 December 2021.
All research outputs
#3,359,601
of 34,307,719 outputs
Outputs from Supportive Care in Cancer
#591
of 6,882 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#54,896
of 491,393 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Supportive Care in Cancer
#15
of 83 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 34,307,719 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done particularly well and is in the 90th percentile: it's in the top 10% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 6,882 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a little more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 6.4. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 91% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 491,393 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has done well, scoring higher than 88% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 83 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has done well, scoring higher than 81% of its contemporaries.
