Elderly Migrants' Cancer Rehabilitation

Social inequality in cancer is increasing and leads to differences in the incident, treatment outcomes, sequalae, and survival. Patients with short education, low income, and living alone are vulnerable during the entire cancer trajectory, including rehabilitation. Patients with a low socioeconomic status report a large unfulfilled need for rehabilitation and a low participation in existing cancer rehabilitation services. There is a need to develop and recommend interventions that can improve cancer rehabilitation for the most vulnerable groups of patients to support their physical, mental, and social wellbeing during and after cancer treatment.
Elderly migrant patients are part of this vulnerable group due to their generally lower educational and socioeconomic status. Also, lingual barriers, the cost and quality of translation services, and the use of relatives as interpreters are factors challenging effective communication and collaboration in health care, which increases their vulnerability in the cancer trajectory including rehabilitation.
It has not yet been investigated what kind of rehabilitating support, interventions, or services could be meaningful and beneficial for this group. Patient and Public Involvement (PPI) has proven to be an effective strategy to target and sensitize health research and service design to hard-to-reach and underserved patients, including vulnerable ethnic minorities.
This project constitutes the first phase of an interventional research project aimed at improving cancer rehabilitation uptake and quality among vulnerable elderly migrant patients. During this first phase, a PPI strategy wil be conducted to inform the development of the rehabilitation intervention. The PPI process explores patients’ and their close relatives’ needs and wishes for rehabilitation support. Health care professionals across health care sectors are involved to ensure the acceptability and feasibility of the intervention in health care organizations.

Patients with short education, low income, and living alone are vulnerable during the entire cancer trajectory, including cancer rehabilitation. Patients with low socioeconomic status have a large unfulfilled need for rehabilitation. Elderly migrant patients are part of this vulnerable group due to their general low socioeconomic status combined with language barriers, which challenges collaboration in health care.
There is a need to develop interventions that can improve cancer rehabilitation for the most vulnerable patients to support their physical, mental, and social wellbeing during and after cancer treatment. By conducting a Patient and Public Involvement (PPI) strategy, which involves patients, relatives, and healthcare professionals actively in the research design process, the purpose of the project is to develop and recommend a user-relevant rehabilitation intervention that is feasible across sectors in health care.