Bryant, Olivia;
(2025)
Allied Healthcare Professionals’ experiences of addressing the psychological needs of people with cancer.
Doctoral thesis (D.Clin.Psy), UCL (University College London).
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Abstract
Overview The Stepped Care Model from the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE, 2004) recommends all health and social care staff be involved in assessing and responding to the psychological needs of cancer patients. Despite vast literature exploring medical healthcare professionals’ experiences of working with distress in cancer care, there is minimal research exploring this in other disciplines, such as Allied Healthcare Professionals (AHPs). Part I is a systematic review exploring all oncology professionals’ ability and confidence in recognising and responding to psychological distress in cancer patients. This chapter includes three sub-sections: how healthcare professionals recognise and respond to distress; their ability to do so; and their confidence. The review recommends ways services can support staff awareness of national psychological guidelines in cancer care. Guidance for future research to address methodological discrepancies in the current literature are also included. Part II includes an empirical paper exploring fifty-nine AHPs’ experiences of addressing the psychological needs of people with cancer. A mixed method approach, a survey followed by focus groups, found insufficient training, supervision, and dissemination of NICE guidelines acted as systemic barriers for AHPs working with psychological distress. Despite this, AHPs showed some awareness and confidence in working with distress. Recommendations for future clinical and research practise are included. Part III presents a critical appraisal of the research. This includes reflections on various processes throughout the project, how the researcher’s personal characteristics and attitudes impacted the research, and what the researcher learnt.
| Type: | Thesis (Doctoral) |
|---|---|
| Qualification: | D.Clin.Psy |
| Title: | Allied Healthcare Professionals’ experiences of addressing the psychological needs of people with cancer |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | Copyright © The Author 2025. Original content in this thesis is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) Licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/). Any third-party copyright material present remains the property of its respective owner(s) and is licensed under its existing terms. Access may initially be restricted at the author’s request. |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences > Div of Psychology and Lang Sciences |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10202861 |
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