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Quality of cancer care in a low-resource setting: A single-center observational study.

e18622 Background: There are challenges in access to healthcare in developing countries. The quality of care is however an important consideration in achieving sustainable positive outcomes during patient management. This study, therefore, aimed to assess this measure of cancer care in our setting. Methods: A cross-sectional study of sixty-three patients with malignancy, who had or were planned for cancer treatment, was performed. Information on their demographic and clinical characteristics were obtained. Quality of cancer care was measured using the Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems instrument. SPSS was used for data analysis and p-value < 0.05 was considered significant. Results: Their average age was 60.0 (43.8 – 69.3) years. Twenty (31.7%) had gastrointestinal malignancy while 17 (27.0%), 15 (23.8%) and 11 (17.5%) had prostate, breast and cervical cancer respectively. The median duration since cancer diagnosis was 4.0 (2.0 – 14.0) months. Regarding support provided by the care team to manage the cancer and the effects of its treatment; majority of the respondents, 30 (54.5%), answered in a negative tone. Similarly, the majority of the respondents did not select the maximum score on the scale in the aspects of receiving timely appointments, care, and information; communication between the cancer care team and patients; information use for care co-ordination; and the availability to give information when required (Table). Despite this, patient rating of their cancer care team and their overall experience was 8.0 ± 1.8 and 7.8 ± 2.0 respectively. There was however a significant difference in the latter between those who had cancer recurrence in comparison to those who did not experience this event (6.8 ± 2.2 versus 8.2 ± 1.7, p = 0.048). Conclusions: Even though the general rating of the experience of these patients was high; the gaps highlighted in the areas of patient support, communication and navigation and their sub-optimal experience during cancer recurrence could be further improved to enhance the delivery of cancer care in this limited resource setting.[Table: see text]