IAHPC Traveling Scholars’ Reports after attending the 11TH INTERNATIONL PSYCHO-ONCOLOGY SOCIETY (IPOS) CONFERENCE IN VIENNA, AUSTRIA. 21-25TH OF JUNE 2009

From Nigeria

I wish to thank IAPHC for awarding me a travel scholarship to attend and participate at the 11th International Psycho-oncology Society (IPOS) conference in Vienna. Austria. Without this, it would have been impossible for me to attend the conference.

Psycho-oncology is an emerging area in oncology that addresses the psychological issues of patients and families who suffer from cancer along the continuum from screening, diagnosis, treatment, survivorship to palliative care. The inability to identify and address psychosocial issues may jeopardize the care of biomedical issues, and consequently affect patients in highly significant ways in holistic care. Psycho-oncology is very new in Nigeria. It is only practiced at the Lola Marinho Psycho-oncology Centre in the Department of Radiotherapy, University College Hospital, Ibadan. There is an urgent need to extend this to other centres in Nigeria.

I participated at the Psychosocial Academy workshops and had the opportunity to present my paper on the 25th of June, 2009. This afforded me the opportunity to network with colleagues from other countries. I also participated at IPOS annual business meeting of members and the federation meeting - both were very informative and particularly useful. Last but not the least, I enjoyed the beautiful city of Vienna and the cultural niceties of the people.

Dr Chioma Asuzu

Director, LMPC, Dept. of Radiotherapy, UCH, Ibadan.Nigeria
Lecturer, University of Ibadan, Ibadan, Nigeria

From Uganda

I wish to express my appreciation to the International Association for Hospice and Palliative Care (IAHPC) for providing me with a scholarship to participate in this world congress for psycho-oncology. I enjoyed the conference and learned a great deal that we can now pursue through collaborative relationships to improve psycho-oncology across Africa.
A total of 57 countries were represented at the conference, with over 600 participants from all disciplines who represented a wide range of work settings. The African Palliative Care Association (APCA) supports and promotes palliative care throughout Africa. In addition to me, only two other delegates from Africa participated in the conference, one from Nigeria and the other from Namibia.

My presentation at the conference

I presented a paper titled “Sexuality needs and coping strategies for terminally ill cancer patients: A case of Hospice Africa Uganda”. Within the same session was a presentation on sexual problems after early stage breast cancer treatment based on a exploratory survey conducted in France. It was interesting to learn that despite having been done in two completely different settings, the results of the two studies were very similar.

Some key conference highlights and lessons from the conference

• Psycho-oncology services must target the patients, their families and care providers. Several research findings were presented in confirmation of the need for psychosocial care among professional care providers.
• There is limited participation by those on the African continent in IPOS activities, yet there are significant opportunities for learning and sharing of experiences to improve practice.
• We are organising our 3rd APCA conference which is scheduled for 15 – 17 September 2010 in Windhoek, Namibia and there are some lessons we can draw from the Congress, such as integrating award sessions within the main programme, ensuring that there are voices of beneficiaries of palliative care services, etc
• Several useful contacts and networks for future collaboration in psycho-oncology were made and these are being used to explore collaborative relationships.
• Several tools that are widely used for psychosocial assessment and management were shared at the Congress.
• There was an emphasis on the role of family therapy in palliative care and tools that could be adapted for assessment and management of family relationships i.e., the Family Relationship Index.
• The Oxford Handbook of Psychiatry in Palliative Medicine, 2nd edition, by Harvey Max Chonchinov & William Breitbart was discussed. It seems a very useful resource which covers a wide range of the psycho-social issues that were discussed at the conference. Further information can be obtained from www.oup.com/us
• I observed that most of the issues/needs discussed at the conference remain unmet across Africa. Examples include: the assessment and management of distress, the importance of family therapy in enhancing quality of life, demoralisation in palliative care, existential issues and questions, the implication of one’s social class on care, etc.
• Reasons for why emotional needs of patients are not adequately assessed and managed were explored. These included: limited research in psycho-oncology, lack of psychosocial training in medical and nursing schools, the value of psychosocial intervention is widely underestimated; a lack of a simple rapid screening tools for emotional distress, the time and economic pressures on physicians, and the fragmentation of care and lack of coordination among others were part of the discussion.
• New and emerging disciplines in psycho-oncology such as art therapy were presented. These therapies seem to be working well and are appealing for dealing with the patients and family’s emotions.
• During a meeting of the Federation Board and National Societies, I explored whether there is a Federation that brings together all national societies for psycho-oncology across the world. In Africa, only Nigeria and South Africa are listed among the countries with national psycho-oncology societies. Through national palliative care associations, APCA could explore.

I wish to express my appreciation to the International Association for Hospice and Palliative Care for providing me with a scholarship to participate in this World Congress. All my objectives for participation were achieved.

FatiaKiyange,SW,MS
Training&StandardsManager
AfricanPalliativeCareAssociation
Kampala, Uganda

From Serbia: A Scholar’s Report and an Update on Psycho-oncology activities in the country

Thanks to generous support of the IAHPC Travelling Scholarship Program I was one of several participants who participated in the IPOS 11th Congress.
I was impressed and delighted with what I learned during the Congress and the pre-congress workshops that I attended.

It was impressive to hear what colleagues and the members of IPOS have done, and are doing, to improve psycho-oncology and to introduce standards into psycho-social care.

My attendance at the Congress instilled me with hope, enthusiasm and a spirit that inspires me to further my activities in the field of psycho-oncology and palliative care in Serbia.

I’d like to express my personal gratitude to IAHPC for making my participation at the Congress possible. Thank you very much for your help and support.

Update

Psycho-oncology (PO) and palliative care (PC) in Serbia are developing very slowly, and we experience many difficulties. The field is absolutely new and unknown in Serbia. In our country, we don`t have adequate numbers of highly educated professionals in this field (psychologists, psychiatrists or psychotherpists) who are in oncological practice. Also, there are not enough working positions in our system that would enable us to employ more colleagues.

The situation in the field of PO and PC in Serbia isn`t too optimistic now, but we have made a few important steps. They are:

• A national plan called Serbian against cancer was accepted and supported in April 2009, by the President of Serbia, Boris Tadic, the ministry of health and other relevant experts in the field of oncology. The plan includes psychosocial care for cancer patients and their families, but the problem is that psycho-social support for cancer patients isn`t a priority in this plan. Unfortunately, it may lead to a separation of the somatic from the psychological aspects of care.

• The first professional meeting of the Serbian Association for psycho-oncology (SAPO) was organized in Belgrade, at the Department for Pediatric Oncology of the Institute for Oncology and Radiology of Serbia (IORS) in April, 2009.

• A national work group for paediatric psycho-oncology was formed during the second part of this meeting in order to implement some of the world standards for psychological protocols at departments for paediatric oncology in Serbia and to improve the professional status and the role of young psychologists who have started to work there.

• I was elected president of SAPO and will start teaching at the Belgrade University, Department for Clinical Psychology, this autumn.That will give me the opportunity to educate young colleagues about health psychology and the importance of psychological aspects in the context of malignant diseases. Previous generations of psychologists didn`t have this opportunity.

MA Tamara Klikovac,
Clinical psychologist & family psychotherapist
National Institute for Oncology and Radiology, Paediatric Oncology Ward
Belgrade, Serbia