Profiling the Psychological Training and Support Needs of Oncology Staff, and Evaluating the Effectiveness of a Level 2 Psychological Support Training Program Workshop

Abstract

The importance of training non-psychology healthcare professionals to offer psychological support to people with cancer is becoming increasingly recognized. This small-scale pilot project sought to identify the training and support needs of oncology staff and to evaluate the effectiveness of a Level 2 Psychological Support Training Program workshop. Semi-structured interviews with five members of multidisciplinary oncology staff identified that training needs were primarily around communication skills, recognizing and dealing with emotions, offering support and empathy, and self-care. Pre and post-training questionnaires developed with these themes in mind revealed that the Level 2 Training Program workshops run in this network of hospitals are effective in increasing participants’ levels of perceived knowledge and confidence across each of these domains. Recommendations are made for further enhancing this effectiveness.

KEYWORDS:

• clinical psychology
• Level 2 Training Program
• oncology
• psychosocial skills training
• service evaluation