Health care concerns of rural childhood cancer survivors
Abstract
BACKGROUND: Geographic isolation may limit health care access due to burdens of time, cost and travel distance. We explored rural childhood cancer survivors' experiences and concerns about accessing affordable, quality care. METHODS: In-depth, semi-structured telephone interviews were conducted with 17 rural adult survivors recruited from the Utah Cancer Registry. Interviews were recorded, transcribed, and content analyzed with NVivo 9 by two coders (kappa = 0.93). RESULTS: Two primary themes emerged: (1) concerns about health care quality and (2) geographic and insurance issues. Within these main themes, we identified salient sub-themes: quality of primary care, patient-provider trust, specialty care access, travel burdens, and financial and insurance concerns. CONCLUSIONS: Rural childhood cancer survivors have concerns about local health care services, but are willing to travel several hours to receive care. Partnerships between local primary care and cancer specialty providers via telemedicine that incorporate survivor care plans could improve risk-based care for rural survivors.
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Families in rural or remote settings have less access to psychosocial support than metropolitan families.
“Families in rural or remote settings have less access to psychosocial support [9,10] and experience more cancer-related financial impacts [11] than metropolitan families”
From Providing psychological support to parents of childhood cancer survivors: ‘cascade’ intervention trial results and lessons for the future (2021) · cites this paper as [10]
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- Authors
- Warner, E. L., Montenegro, R. E., Stroup, A., Kinney, A. Y., & Kirchhoff, A. C.
- Affiliations
- University of Utah (US)
- Yale University (US)
- Venue
- Journal of Health Care for the Poor and Underserved
- Publisher
- Project MUSE
- Published
- 2014-05
- Volume
- 25
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 901-912
- ISSN
- 1049-2089 (ISSN-L)
- 1548-6869
- OpenAlex
- W2124528535
- Cited by
- 35
- References
- 37
- Citations by year
- 2026: 5 · 2025: 4 · 2024: 4 · 2023: 1 · 2022: 3 · 2021: 4 · 2020: 4 · 2019: 4 · 2018: 2 · 2017: 1 · 2015: 2 · 2014: 1
- FWCI
- 1.25
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Journal of Health Care for the Poor and Underserved (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Project Muse (Johns Hopkins University) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- U.S. Public Health Service (#HHSN 261201000026C)
- Topics
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Pediatrics, Perinatology and Child Health › Childhood Cancer Survivors' Quality of Life
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Oncology › Cancer survivorship and care
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Oncology › Global Cancer Incidence and Screening
- Keywords
- childhood cancer survivors, rural health care, health care access, geographic isolation, quality of care, physician-patient trust, primary care, access to specialist care, travel burden, health insurance, financial concerns, telemedicine, risk-based care
- MeSH terms
- Adolescent, Adult, Child, Female, Health Services Accessibility, Humans, Insurance, Health, Interviews as Topic, Male, Middle Aged, Neoplasms, Quality of Health Care, Rural Population, Utah, Survivors, Trust, Young Adult
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