Healthcare Professionals

Emotional Wellness for Patients

An Integral Part of Cancer Care

As healthcare providers, you understand that cancer care at the highest levels includes patient and caregiver access to tools and resources that address their emotional and mental health concerns. Providing a space for meaningful discussions regarding patients’ emotional and mental health needs is an important part of quality cancer care.

Research shows that up to one-quarter of people living with cancer are also living with depression,1 and up to 20 percent are at risk for clinically significant anxiety.2 In addition to causing general emotional distress, studies show that depression and anxiety can negatively impact patients’ adherence to recommended cancer treatments and hinder overall quality of life and survival.3

Talk About It provides healthcare professionals with links to resources to help integrate mental health into patient interactions, treatments, and care. Because when healthcare professionals have access to the right tools and resources to talk about address mental health, patients are empowered to seek the mental health care they need. 

A physician in a blue collard shirt and tan sweater holding a white clip board explaining it to a man in a tan beanie and yellow shirt.
A man with glasses in a grey collard shirt grabbing the hand of his caregiver.
A man in a light blue shirt looking at a black clip board held by a physician who looks to be explaining it to him.

Publications, Infographics & Fact Sheets

With support from BeiGene, a recent Cancer Support Community (CSC) survey of more than 600 US. cancer patients and survivors who self-identify as having experienced an emotional or mental health concern brought to light some key insights around how cancer impacts mental health, patients’ unmet emotional wellness needs, barriers to accessing mental health care, and what resources they find most helpful.4

Videos

A Physician's Perspective on Cancer & Mental Health

BeiGene’s Dr. Christiane Langer and Dr. Mark Lanasa Share a Physician’s Perspective on Cancer & Mental Health

How Cancer & Mental Health Are Related

Cancer Support Community’s Eucharia Borden and BeiGene’s Maia Thrift-Perry Discuss How Cancer & Mental Health are Related

The Importance of Caring for Caregivers

Dr. Allison Applebaum on Caring for Caregivers

An Oncology Social Worker on Addressing Cancer Patient's Mental Health

Dr. Heather Goltz Shares an Oncology Social Worker’s Perspective 

  1. Krebber et al. (2013). Prevalence of depression in cancer patients: a meta-analysis of diagnostic interviews and self-report instruments. Psycho-oncology, 23(2), 121-30
  2. Mitchell, A. J., Chan, M., Bhatti, H., Halton, M., Grassi, L., Johansen, C., & Meader, N. (2011). Prevalence of depression, anxiety, and adjustment disorder in oncological, haematological, and palliative-care settings: a meta-analysis of 94 interview-based studies. The Lancet. Oncology, 12(2), 160–174.
  3. Holland et al. (2013). Distress management. Journal of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network, 11(2), 190–209. https://doi.org/10.6004/jnccn.2013.0027
  4. Cancer Support Community (2022). Cancer Experience Registry Spotlight Survey: Identifying Barriers to Accessing Mental Health Care among Cancer Patients and Survivors [Unpublished data, August 2021]