Conceptualisation, assessment and interventions to alleviate suffering in the cancer context: A systematic literature review

In 2012 I project managed and contributed heavily to the preparation of a systematic literature review on the conceptualisation, assessment, and management of suffering across all types of cancer. This report required extracting and reporting on information from over 200 articles across three different strands of the review. The first strand of the review involved synthesising findings from a diverse range of studies to create a definition of suffering in the context of cancer and identify several aphorisms about its identification and treatment. The second strand involved reporting on the psychometric properties of a variety of different scales and measures that could be used to measure different dimensions of suffering and evaluating their usefulness. The third strand involved assessing the quality of evidence supporting different types of interventions designed to alleviate suffering. This report was completed within a tight 6-month timeframe and informed the development of Cancer Australia’s Clinical guidance for responding to suffering in adults with cancer and several subsequent journal articles.