An overwhelming majority of cancer survivors say support is key to sticking with grueling treatment to save their lives, but they rank support groups among the lowest sources of help and family or friends among the highest, according to a new national survey.

At the same time, while support groups are often led by a trained expert, most Americans (56 percent) say friends and family don't know how to offer effective support and most oncology nurses (60 percent) agree, according to the survey, which was sponsored by Cancer Treatment Centers of America (CTCA).

"This survey spotlights the tragic gap between the kind of support that cancer patients feel is vital to undergo treatment and the help that loved ones feel qualified to give," said Katherine Puckett, director of Mind/Body Medicine at CTCA.

The debate over support and cancer survival heated up several years ago with an attack on the long-held belief that support groups increased the survival rates of breast cancer patients. At the time, researchers from Carnegie Mellon University indicated that support groups may not help women who already get a lot of help and comfort from their loved ones, and might even hurt them by alienating them from their closest support givers.

In the CTCA study, support groups lag far behind family or friends as a source of emotional, knowledge or spiritual support. Meanwhile, support is essential to enduring rigorous medical treatment (rated 8,9, or 10 on 1-10 scale, with 10 labeled "extremely important"), according to 75 percent of the 500 cancer survivors in the CTCA study.

The CTCA survey also found that women with cancer were more likely than men with cancer to want support (82 percent vs. 68 percent).

Female cancer patients said they primarily get their emotional support from husbands (51 percent), daughters (40 percent) and female friends (37 percent), with support groups at 4 percent. Knowledge support comes from male doctors (69 percent), female doctors (19 percent), oncology nurses (18 percent) and female friends (15 percent), with support groups at 9 percent. Finally, spiritual support is derived from a priest/rabbi (52 percent), female friends (31 percent), husbands (22 percent) and daughters (18 percent), with support groups at l percent.

Interestingly, female cancer patients often see their girlfriends as lifesavers. They list girlfriends as their chief source of knowledge and spiritual support, after the "experts," such as clergy or medical personnel.

When it comes to emotional support, girlfriends are named among the top support givers, after husbands and daughters but before sons (30 percent) and other family members (21 percent).

Male cancer patients said they get most of their emotional support from daughters (36 percent), wives (33 percent), sons (29 percent), with support groups amounting to less than 3 percent, the CTCA research indicated. Knowledge support comes from male doctors (71 percent), wives (15 percent), female doctors (13 percent) and oncology nurses (12 percent), with support groups at 6 percent. Lastly, spiritual support is from a priest/rabbi (51 percent), wife (45 percent), female friend (28 percent), and male friend (17 percent), with support groups at less than 1 percent.

Finally, while a vast majority of cancer survivors who worked during treatment found co-workers were supportive (82 percent), more than one third of employers (37 percent) offered little or no support in terms of easing their work situation (offering more flexible or reduced working hours, rest periods at work or even financial help), the CTCA survey showed.

The random telephone survey of 500 cancer survivors, 200 oncology nurses and 1,071 members of the general public was conducted between September 12-25 by International Communications Research, Inc., (ICR) of Media, Pa. The margin of error among the general public is plus or minus 3 percent; among cancer patients is plus or minus 4 percent and among oncology nurses is plus or minus 7 percent.

SOURCES:
PR Newswire (http://www.prnewswire.com)
Cancer Treatment Centers of America (http://www.cancercenter.com)