Citation

Davidson C, Desbeaumes Jodoin V, Aubin F, Levenson JA, Rivest J. Palliat. Support. Care 2021; ePub(ePub): ePub.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2021, Cambridge University Press)

DOI

10.1017/S1478951521000912

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Living with cancer can be challenging. Recent studies estimate that 40% of cancer patients will experience significant distress during their illness trajectory. Persistent distress is associated with the dissatisfaction of care, lower quality of life, and psychiatric disorders. Some patients will also present an increased risk of wishes to hasten death, suicidal ideations, or completed suicide compared with the general population (McFarland et al., 2019). Though suicide is recognized as a global public health problem, suicide prevention in cancer care has not garnered the same attention (Turecki et al., 2019). Current guidelines promoting systematic screening for distress only recommend suicide risk assessment when anxiety or depression symptoms are detected. Although speculative, this potential risk begs the question of which the next steps should be considered for suicide prevention for this specific high-risk population. The COVID-19 pandemic has led mental health experts to anticipate an increase in distress and suicide risk among the general population (Gunnell et al., 2020). For cancer patients, the pandemic brings forward significant new challenges, such as difficulty or inability to access cancer treatments, strict isolation measures which limit their social support and of course fear of contamination which is associated with higher mortality and morbidity in cancer patients. Little is known of the impact, this pandemic will have on distress or the prevalence of mental illness, and of suicide in cancer patients...

Language: en