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The purpose of this paper is to analyse the information needs of family caregivers of cancer patients. Information sources used by the caregivers were also examined.

We interviewed 15 family caregivers (nine females, six males) in Taiwan for this study. The participants were aged from 23 to 67 years, and all except two had attained college or higher degrees. Their relationships with patients included spousal, parental, and that of son or daughter.

Family caregivers’ information needs varied along the cancer journey, and they used various information sources to satisfy these needs. Demographic variables affected the information-seeking behaviour of the family caregivers.

The majority of studies on this topic have been based in western countries. This paper reveals the importance of considering cultural factors. The findings can assist researchers in gaining a greater understanding of the information-seeking behaviour of family caregivers of cancer patients worldwide.

The purpose of this paper was to understand the lived experiences of women who have been diagnosed, treated and are cancer free as survivors.

Using purposive sampling approach, participants were recruited from two Missouri cancer centers. A total of 15 breast cancer free women (ten white and five black) were interviewed. The participants ranged in age from 34 to 62 years, and all had at least a bachelor degree.

Eight unique themes were identified from the interviews. The women noted that maintaining positive attitude, and support from family and friends were the greatest resources that helped them through their cancer journey. They were generally positive about their experiences but uncertain what “survivor” meant individually and personally.

All the women in this study had at least a college degree, stable family economic resources and health insurance.

The women interviewed in this study did not want to be called breast cancer “survivors” which is a common name for anyone who has been diagnosed, treated and cancer free. For those who are breast cancer educators, nurses, medical practitioners and counselors it is important to consider how they use the word “survivor.” Referring to women who have successfully completed a treatment program for breast cancer as “survivors” attaches an identity that may not be accepted by all.

This paper aims to investigate the effect of cancer patients’ information behaviour on their decision-making at the diagnosis and treatment stages of their cancer journey. Patients’ information sources and their decision-making approaches were analyzed.

Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 15 participants.

The cancer patients sought information from various sources in choosing a hospital, physician, treatment method, diet and alternative therapy. Physicians were the primary information source. The patients’ approaches to treatment decision-making were diverse. An informed approach was adopted by nine patients, a paternalistic approach by four and a shared decision-making approach by only two.

In practice, the findings may assist hospitals and medical professionals in fostering pertinent interactions with patients.

The findings can enhance researcher understanding regarding the effect of cancer patients’ information behaviour on their decision-making.

This chapter seeks to investigate the journey of breast and bowel cancer patients at the HMC Antoniushove. It zooms in on specific touch points and the possibilities for improvements. Furthermore, it elucidates the learning process and more particular the dissemination between the hospital (staff and medical students) and hospitality students and professionals and emphasizes that looking from different perspectives and various disciplines is beneficial for all the stakeholders involved in hospitals.

Diseases are increasingly chronic; patients are more demanding and competition between different hospitals is increasing. That is why, in addition to excellent medical treatment, excellent service (referred to here as hospitality) is becoming increasingly important in the healthcare sector, including in hospitals. What does it have to meet? What do patients appreciate, what needs to be improved and how can these improvements be designed and implemented with the involvement of both patients and hospital staff?

Medical and hospitality students collaborated in this project analysing and describing the journey of patients with breast and bowel cancer. They examined the patient journey and elucidated the touch points, which patients indicated as critical during their ‘journey’.

Most important finding resulted from the learning process of this collaboration and the insight gained, a greater awareness and understanding of the non-medical needs and wishes, i.e. hospitality, of patients. Furthermore, the mutual understanding between the evidence-based stance of thinking of medical students and hospital staff at the one side and the more on soft skills–focused attitude of hospitality students on the other hand increased.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the Malay children’s information needs from their experience with parental cancer using information behaviour techniques to elicit sensitive information that provided an indication of what children were thinking.

Data collection adapted the participatory action research method and used participatory-based techniques that included drawings, essays and interviews. Data explication used an interpretative phenomenological analysis approach. Social constructionism, learning theory and cognitive theory were used to analyse the data. In total, 32 participants took part, ten mothers with breast cancer at different stages of their cancer journey, and 32 children between 6 and 18 years old.

There are shortcomings in the provision of cancer information for Malay children. Unlike verbose and difficult to digest medical definitions and descriptions about cancer and its treatment, the Malay children defined cancer as having components made from their experiences and observations about how cancer affected their parent. The findings explain the relationship between children participants’ reaction to a health situation and the subsequent processes they undergo to resolve their state of information need.

It highlights the importance of determining information needs and the combined methods used to gain and interpret the experience children face with a parental cancer diagnosis. The findings about ethnic-based information problems, needs and provision for dependent children of cancer patients are one of the original contributions of this research. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this research is believed to be the first in-depth qualitative and highly participative study of the implications of cancer for dependent children of Malay cancer patients.

The purpose of this paper is to provide novel theoretical insight into service delivery system (SDS) design. To do so, this paper adopts a customer journey perspective, using it as a frame to explore dimensions of experience quality that inform design requirements.

This study utilises UK Patient Opinion data to analyse the stories of 200 cancer patients. Using a critical incident technique, 1,207 attributes of experience quality are generated and classified into 17 quality dimensions across five stages of the customer (patient) journey.

Analysis reveals both similarity and difference in dimensions of experience quality across the patient journey: seven dimensions are common to all five journey stages, from receiving diagnosis to end of life care; ten dimensions were found to vary, present in one or several of the stages but not in all.

Limitations include a lack of representativity of the story sample and the impossibility to verify the factual occurrence of the stories.

Adopting a patient journey perspective can improve the practitioner understanding of the design requirements of SDS in healthcare. The results of the study can be applied by managers to configure SDS that achieve a higher quality of patient care throughout the patient journey.

This paper extends existing literature on SDS design by adopting a customer journey perspective, revealing heterogeneity in experience quality across the customer journey currently unaccounted for in SDS design frameworks. Specifically, the findings challenge homogeneity in extant SDS design frameworks, evidencing the need for multiple, stage-specific SDS design requirements.

The purpose of this paper is to report on an evaluative study which used appreciative inquiry (AI) to explore the processes of change during the Cancer Services Collaborative Improvement programme instituted by the Department of Health in the UK. This was a three‐stage programme which expanded from nine pilot projects to a national service change, focussing on improving the patient's experience throughout the journey from diagnosis to treatment.

The paper uses AI questions in interviews with a range of CSC staff who had had different roles and length of involvement.

The study identified a range of strategies and skills that participants had developed in order to support and facilitate service change.

The paper offers a discussion of skills and strategies that can facilitate change in health care across clinical areas, and a discussion of the use of AI as a method of evaluation.

This study is one of the first to use AI in health care evaluation in the UK, and thus makes a contribution to understanding change from an AI perspective.

The purpose of this study is to explore how vulnerable healthcare consumers foster social support through visual storytelling in social media in navigating healthcare consumption experiences.

This study employs a dual qualitative approach of visual and textual analysis of 180 Instagram posts from female breast cancer patients and survivors who use the platform to narrate their healthcare consumption experiences.

This study demonstrates how visual storytelling on social media normalises hidden aspects of healthcare consumption experiences through healthcare disclosures (procedural, corporeal, recovery), normalising practices (providing learning resources, cohering the illness experience, problematising mainstream recovery narratives) and enabling digital affordances, which in turn facilitates social support among vulnerable healthcare consumers.

This study highlights the potential for visual storytelling on social media to address shortcomings in the healthcare service system and contribute to societal well-being through co-creative efforts that offer real-time and customised support for vulnerable healthcare consumers.

This research highlights that visual storytelling on image-based social media offers transformative possibilities for vulnerable healthcare consumers seeking social support in negotiating the challenges of their healthcare consumption experiences.

This study presents a framework of visual storytelling for vulnerable healthcare consumers on image-based social media. Our paper offers three key contributions: that visual storytelling fosters informational and companionship social support for vulnerable healthcare consumers; recognising this occurs through normalising hidden healthcare consumption experiences; and identifying healthcare disclosures, normalising practices and enabling digital affordances as fundamental to this process.

The purpose of this study is to examine the way in which the theoretical construct of liminality contributes to understanding the process of dying of cancer from the perspective of patients, carers and professionals in a state-run organization undergoing privatization.

Qualitative interviews were held with 13 patients and their carers and two focus groups with eight physiotherapists and occupational therapists. Data were analysed from the perspective of liminality for all three actors: patients, carers and health professionals.

The theoretical construct of liminality was useful for understanding the lived experience of patients and their carers. However, a major finding of this study reveals that health professionals operated in a dual space as both managers of the ritual process and individuals undergoing a liminal journey as their organization underwent transformation or restructure. Clients and carers had little knowledge of these tensions.

The findings are limited by the fact that the interviews did not directly ask questions about the restructure of the organization.

It would appear that professionals provide quality care despite their own struggles in moving from one organizational form to another

Few studies have explored the liminal rituals of dying at home that outline how professionals, as managers of the process, deal with their own liminal issues.