Navigating the emotional landscape: exploring caregivers' journey alongside breast cancer survivors with chronic pain.

Purpose: Caregiving is a crucial but frequently overlooked part of cancer care, as well as the main emotions experienced by caregivers during that journey. This qualitative study aimed to explore the emotional landscape of informal caregivers in supporting breast cancer survivors (BCs) living with chronic pain (CP).

Methods: We conducted 3 focus groups with informal caregivers of BCs with CP.

The voices of breast cancer survivors with chronic pain: A qualitative thematic analysis of patients' challenges to pain management.

Objectives: Recognizing the limitations of the current pain therapies, the study aimed to explore the unique needs and obstacles related to pain management in Breast Cancer Survivors (BCs) with Chronic Pain (CP).

Methods: 4 focus groups were conducted involving 17 BCs with CP (Mage = 51, SD = 7.99) with varying pain intensities.

Emotional experiences and psychological well-being in 51 countries during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The COVID-19 pandemic presents challenges to psychological well-being, but how can we predict when people suffer or cope during sustained stress? Here, we test the prediction that specific types of momentary emotional experiences are differently linked to psychological well-being during the pandemic. Study 1 used survey data collected from 24,221 participants in 51 countries during the COVID-19 outbreak. We show that, across countries, well-being is linked to individuals' recent emotional experiences, including calm, hope, anxiety, loneliness, and sadness.

Cancer Pain Experience Through the Lens of Patients and Caregivers: Mixed Methods Social Media Study.

Background: Cancer pain represents a challenge for cancer patients and their family members. Despite progression in pain management, pain is still underreported and undertreated, and there is limited information on the related needs that patients and caregivers may have. Online platforms represent a fundamental tool for research to reveal the unmet needs of these users and their emotions outside the medical setting.

The emotional side of taking part in a cancer clinical trial.

Background: Taking part in a cancer clinical trial often represents a source of psychological distress and emotional activation among patients and their caregivers. Nowadays, social media platforms provide a space for these groups to freely express and share their emotional experiences.

Aims: We aimed to reveal the most prevalent basic and complex emotions and sentiments in the posts of the patients and caregivers contemplating clinical trials on Reddit.

Prognostic Awareness in Terminally Ill Cancer Patients: A Narrative Literature Review of the Processes Involved.

High prognostic awareness (PA) is seen by many as a threat to terminal patients' psychological well-being. Whether this concern is supported by evidence or not is still a matter of discussion, given the heterogeneity of existing findings. This ambiguity points to the importance of considering contextual processes involved in the relationship between high PA and psychological outcomes, as a possible mediator and moderator mechanism.

The Burden of the Pain: Adverse Mental Health Outcomes of COVID-19 in Women With and Without Cancer.

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic had a negative psychological impact on the population at scale, yet it is possible that vulnerable patient populations may experience a heavier burden with increased feelings of anxiety and distress. Cancer patients have to trade-off between the fear of exposing themselves to the virus and the need to continue life-saving medical procedures. The present study investigated the prevalence of generalized anxiety and post-traumatic stress symptoms (PTSS) in a population of Italian cancer patients and healthy participants in the months following the COVID-19 outbreak.

Shared decision-making and the lessons learned about decision regret in cancer patients.

The commentary presents reflections on the literature on post-treatment cancer patient regret. Even though a lot of effort has been made to increase patient satisfaction by engaging them in medical decisions, patient regret remains present in clinical settings. In our commentary, we identify three main aspects of shared decision-making that previously have been shown to predict patient regret.