The complexity of health conditions related to cancer and late or long-term side effects as consequences of its treatments affect the quality of life of cancer patients and their families and pose a significant societal and economic burden. Palliative, supportive, survivorship and end-of-life care approaches improve the quality of life for cancer patients and professional and family caregivers through the prevention and relief of suffering by means of early identification, assessment and treatment of pain and other problems such as physical, psychosocial and spiritual problems.
Although a variety of interventions are in use, they are often insufficiently validated or adapted to the specific needs of cancer patients and cancer survivors, often affected by co-or multi-morbidities. Thus, there is a need to strengthen the evidence base for patient-centred, effective interventions improving the quality of life and outcomes of cancer patients and cancer survivors of all ages in the domains of supportive, palliative, survivorship and end-of-life care.
This topic aims at supporting activities that are enabling or contributing to one or several expected impacts of destination 3“Tackling diseases and reducing disease burden”. To that end, proposals under this topic should aim for delivering results that are directed, tailored towards and contributing to all of the following expected outcomes:
- Reduced health-related suffering and improved well-being and quality of life for cancer patients in need of supportive, palliative, survivorship or end-of-life care as well as for their professional and family caregivers.
- Cancer patients (independently of their age) have early and better access to supportive, palliative, survivorship or end-of-life care services of higher quality and (cost)effectiveness.
- Reduced societal, healthcare and economic burden associated with increasing demands of supportive, palliative, survivorship or end-of-life care services that is beneficial for citizens and preserves the sustainability of the health care systems.
- Health care providers and health policy makers have access to and use improved clinical guidelines and policies with respect to pain management, psychological and/or spiritual support, and supportive, palliative, survivorship or end-of-life care for cancer patients.
- Cancer patients and their professional and family caregivers use the improved evidence-based and information-driven palliative care decision-making process
Deadline date: 21 September 2021 17:00:00 Brussels time