Background

Optimizing communications and treatment expectations appears crucial for improving overall health outcomes in integrative cancer care. Cancer care may benefit from cancer care practitioners’ insights into the role of communication and treatment expectations. The aim was to describe how cancer care practitioners view the significance of communication and treatment expectations, both for patients and for themselves in the care of people with cancer.

Methods

This descriptive qualitative interview study covered 15 cancer care practitioners (9 nurses, 4 physiotherapists, 2 occupational therapists) with professional experience ranging from 3 to 37 years. The individual interviews were analyzed using thematic analysis.

Results

Presented as an overarching theme, the cancer care practitioners viewed personalized, mutual, trustful communication to be fundamental to ensure safe, secure, and effective cancer care, as well as to experience well-being at work. The thematic analysis identified 5 themes: Personalizing patient communication is challenging, yet essential for providing quality care; Communication is a mutual give-and-take between different parties; Patients’ expectations and pre-understandings of the care system affect communication dynamics; Cancer care practitioners use communication to influence patients’ expectations; Communication creates satisfaction and safety at work.

Conclusions and Implications for Practice

Cancer care practitioners viewed personalized, mutual, trustful communication to be fundamental to ensure safe, secure, and effective cancer care, as well as to experience well-being at work. Given the wide variation in views on whether communication strategies should be used to enhance patients’ positive expectations to improve health outcomes, rigorous scientific studies evaluation communication styles in cancer care are warranted.