Background: Partners of men diagnosed with prostate cancer face their own emotional struggles, as they navigate additional caregiver responsibilities, while concurrently adjusting to the diagnosis and coping with greater illness uncertainty for their loved one.
Objective: This qualitative systematic review examined the unmet supportive care needs of partners affected by prostate cancer.
Interventions/Methods: A meta-aggregation was conducted. Four electronic databases were search using key words. The methodology followed the Joanna Brigg’s Institute (JBI) for qualitative evidence synthesis. The review process followed a registered priori review protocol and was reported using the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis (PRISMA) guidelines. Data extraction and quality assessment was conducted in parallel.
Results: 21 publications were included. A total of 239 findings and 32 categories were synthesised into seven domains of unmet needs as experienced by partners. The domains of needs expressed by the participants included: interpersonal/intimacy, physical/daily living, health care service, family-related, psychological/emotional needs, spiritual, and social needs.
Conclusions: There are gaps in clinical service support, despite routine clinical consultation with healthcare professionals. Partner may diminish their social networks to protect their husband at the cost to their own self-preservation and well-being.
Implications for practice: Cancer organisations, policy makers, healthcare care professionals and researchers are slowly making progress to acknowledge the unique support needs of partner affected by cancer. Healthcare professionals should encourage partners to be included in models of prehabilitation access timely support to address informational, intimacy, spiritual and daily living needs support.