Patient Satisfaction in Italian Childhood Cancer Survivors: Human Aspects of Treatment as a Key Factor in Patients' Quality of Life

The purpose of this study was to illustrate childhood cancer survivors’ perceptions about their experience with the health services and their perceived quality of life. Participants were 213 Northeast Italian childhood cancer survivors with a mean age of 19.4 years (SD = 2.95). Survivors were mostly affected by hematologic disorders (n = 114); 99 had different types of solid tumors. A 30-item questionnaire assessing patient satisfaction was given to the survivors, who had finished treatment on average 9.8 years previously (SD = 4.13). Socioeconomic, medical, and health-related quality of life (HRQOL) data were also collected. The authors ran a varimax rotated factor analysis on patient satisfaction questions and identified four psychometrically robust dimensions (58.15 percent of variance): medical communication and technical quality of care, accessibility and physical environment satisfaction, interpersonal manner, and empathy. Childhood cancer survivors over 18 years old mostly declared that they had a worse HRQOL compared with controls. Patients with the greatest number of years since treatment and who declared that they had more energy at present were also more satisfied with the health care they received. The questionnaire is a promising research tool to give direct voice to childhood cancer survivors.