Psychosocial support in cancer care has not been researched or published to the degree of physical support. This type of support includes the mental, emotional, social, and spiritual needs of patients and loved ones. This quality improvement project provides insight for those seeking understanding of what exactly helps cancer patients cope during outpatient radiation therapy treatments. The purpose of this project was to learn what practices benefit patient's coping during outpatient external radiation therapy treatments in order to increase attention given to psychosocial support of future cancer patients receiving outpatient external radiation therapy treatments. Insight from this project was used to create a resource handout for Novant Health Cancer Institute to help increase awareness, discussion, and attention to supporting outpatient radiation therapy patients emotionally and spiritually.
Keywords: Radiation therapy; chaplain; psychosocial support.