Perceptions of health care and insurance needs among survivors of childhood cancer and experts in survivorship care.
Qualitative interviews with 11 adult survivors of childhood cancer and 40 survivorship-care experts identified gaps in health and insurance literacy, insurance-use barriers, and health-care delivery problems associated with avoidance of care and underuse of benefits.
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Qualitative interviews with 11 adult survivors of childhood cancer and 40 survivorship-care experts identified gaps in health and insurance literacy, insurance-use barriers, and health-care delivery problems associated with avoidance of care and underuse of benefits.
Research significance
The interviews support health and insurance literacy as a perceived, modifiable survivorship-care barrier; it is reasonable—but not demonstrated by this study—to hypothesize that a targeted literacy program could improve insurance use and engagement with recommended long-term care.
Source abstract
We conducted semi-structured interviews with adult survivors of childhood cancer and cancer care experts in the United States to explore viewpoints on health needs and barriers to insurance utilization to develop a literacy improving program. We conducted qualitative thematic analysis and used an inductive-deductive approach to organize findings in accordance with Aday & Andersen's conceptual model of access to medical care. From June-October 2019, we interviewed 11 survivors and 40 experts. Survivors and experts identified gaps in survivors' health insurance literacy contributing to their avoidance of healthcare and underuse of insurance benefits along with pitfalls of health care delivery and insurance coverage. Experts and survivors of childhood cancer agreed on health care and insurance coverage needs of survivors. Low health care and insurance literacy present an urgent target for intervention informed by study findings.