Preferences of cancer survivors for follow-up care: a systematic review of discrete choice experiments.

backgroundThe unmet post-treatment needs and issues of cancer survivors for follow-up care are still significant, matching appropriate and acceptable follow-up care to cancer survivors' preferences, may increase adherence of survivors to health programs and quality of life. There is a knowledge gap about how cancer survivors measured their choices between different aspects of follow-up care. As discrete choice experiments (DCE) have been widely used in patient preference elicitation, we reviewed DCE on follow-up care for cancer survivors.

methodsThe electronic databases PubMed, The Cochrane Library, Embase, and Web of Science were searched, up to October 06, 2024. Original studies reporting preferences of cancer survivors for follow-up care elicited by DCE were eligible. Findings were presented using a narrative synthesis. Using two validated checklists to evaluate the quality of the included DCE studies.

resultsA total of 3525 records were identified and 9 papers were included. The studies were conducted in the Netherlands, Australia, the United Kingdom (UK) and China with 123 to 722 participants evaluated preferences of cancer survivors for follow-up care. Most of included cancer survivors were after completed the main treatment. Several key attributes for cancer survivors' follow-up care were identified including healthcare provider, services offered, frequency of visits, contact mode, familiarity of healthcare provider with patients' medical history/continuity of care.

conclusionsThe systematic review focusing on preferences of cancer survivors follow-up care and attributes identified in these studies, the results may inform healthcare providers should take cancer survivors preferences into account.