The National Comprehensive Cancer Network’s Distress Thermometer helps people with cancer worldwide receive better care by empowering discussion and recommending best practices for managing psychological wellness.
[October 10, 2022] — The National Comprehensive Cancer Network® (NCCN®) today announced an updated NCCN Distress Thermometer, available in more than 70 languages, to help people around the world identify and address psychosocial stressors that may raise challenges when coping with having cancer, its symptoms, or treatment. The announcement comes on World Mental Health Day, an international day for raising awareness of global mental health needs and resources.
“The NCCN Distress Thermometer has been helping to normalize and encourage discussion of distress as a standard part of oncology patient visits since 1997,” said Michelle Riba, MD, MS, University of Michigan Rogel Cancer Center, Chair of the NCCN Clinical Practice Guidelines in Oncology (NCCN Guidelines®) Panel for Distress Management.
“The NCCN Distress Thermometer has been helping to normalize and encourage discussion of distress as a standard part of oncology patient visits since 1997”.Michelle Riba, MD, MS, University of Michigan Rogel Cancer Center, Chair of the NCCN Clinical Practice Guidelines in Oncology (NCCN Guidelines®) Panel for Distress Management.
“We recently overhauled this free one-page resource to be even more user-friendly and inclusive. Distress screening should be a routine part of cancer care for everyone, everywhere. By making this free resource even easier to understand and use, as well as more accessible, we hope all people with cancer will receive the support they need in order to achieve the best possible outcomes.”
The tool includes a simple scale for indicating the amount of distress a patient is experiencing. It also features a straightforward checklist of concerns covering different domains, including:
Physical;
Emotional;
Practical;
Social;
and Spiritual or Religious.
In addition to the one-page NCCN Distress Thermometer and Problem List, there are full NCCN Guidelines® for Distress Management containing evidence-based expert consensus recommendations intended for health care providers. There are also NCCN Guidelines for Patients®: Distress During Cancer Care with the same information in an accessible format to empower patients and caregivers to participate in shared decision-making.
The updated NCCN Distress Thermometer translations are part of NCCN’s ongoing efforts to make NCCN Guidelines and associated clinical resources more accessible for non-English speakers. It is now available in the following languages, in addition to the original English:
Afrikaans
Albanian
Amharic
Arabic
Armenian
Bengali/Bangla
Bulgarian
Burmese
Catalan
Chinese *
Croatian
Czech
Danish
Dutch
Estonian
Finnish
French *
Galician
Georgian
German
Greek
Hausa
Hebrew
Hindi
Hmong
Hungarian
Icelandic
Igbo
Indonesian
Italian
Japanese
Javanese
Khmer
Korean
Kurdish
Latvian/Lettish
Lithuanian
Macedonian
Malay
Malayalam
Marathi
Nepali
Norwegian
Oromo
Persian
Polish
Portuguese
Punjabi
Romanian
Russian
Serbian
Slovak
Slovenian
Somali
Spanish *
Swahili
Swedish
Tagalog
Tamil
Telugu
Thai
Turkish
Ukrainian
Urdu
Vietnamese
Yoruba
Zulu
“On World Mental Health Day and every day, we want to uphold the fact that addressing emotional distress is a key part of patient care. We hope our work helps reduce any stigma or burden, enabling these important discussions around emotional wellbeing.”Robert W. Carlson, MD, Chief Executive Officer, NCCN.
“We hope our work helps reduce any stigma or burden, enabling these important discussions around emotional wellbeing.”
Independent researchers recently published a study in Psycho-Oncology examining 39 peer-reviewed articles validating the use of the NCCN Distress Thermometer across 25 countries, stating: “This tool has proven to be an effective means to support initiation of the conversation.” The translated NCCN Distress Thermometer can be found at NCCN.org/distress-thermometer-translations.
(LS/Newswise)