Impact of financial toxicity on adults with cancer during the COVID-19 pandemic: an integrative review.
Luciana de Alcantara Nogueira, Cristiano de Oliveira Ribeiro, Leonel Dos Santos Silva and 2 others
PMID 39230125WHAT IT FOUND
Adult cancer patients said pandemic-era money problems made it hard to pay for food, housing, medication, transportation, and internet, and led to anxiety and delayed care.
Telehealth was used as a less burdensome option.
Key findings
01Across the included studies, financial toxicity was reported as difficulty covering basic expenses such as food, housing, medication, transportation, and internet, along with reduced or absent income and anxiety.
02Patients also reported difficulty obtaining treatment or accessing healthcare services, reduced social support affecting routine and lifestyle habits, and increased expenses.
03In one included study of 1,437 adults with cancer, 57% reported challenges paying for necessities, including 40% for food, 32% for housing, 28% for transportation, and 20% for internet.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for RNs
Read the rest of this summary
You get three full summaries a month, free, and we do not ask for a card. Search, the TL;DRs and your library stay unlimited either way.
What it does not show
All included studies were rated low level of evidence, level 5, so the review is not strong evidence. The review included only adult cancer patients, not children, adolescents, or caregivers, so it does not describe financial toxicity in those groups. Only open-access articles were included, and the search may have missed Virtual Health Library records because of the term used, so relevant studies could be absent. The 13 included articles were all in English, despite searching in Portuguese, English, and Spanish, so Portuguese-language work may have been missed. The review reports patient-reported hardships and study-specific percentages, not tested treatment effects.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read this as proof that telehealth reduces financial toxicity. The review reports adoption of telemedicine or telehealth as a less burdensome alternative, but it does not test a treatment effect.