Cancer patients’ experience during the COVID-19 pandemic and their satisfaction with telehealth

Objective: Covid-19 pandemic has had a profound emotional impact in general population and, especially, in patients with chronic diseases, like cancer patients. Moreover, it has placed unparalelled demands on healthcare systems. The aim of the present study is to explore this impact on oncology patients from their own experience, assess their coping strategies and also know their opinion about the healthcare assistance received. Method: One hundred and eighteen oncology patients from 5 different hospitals around Barcelona participated in the study. Data was collected using both HADS and an ad-hoc questionnaire which evaluated emotional distress, coping strategies, risk-contagion perception, social support and assessment of changes in healthcare assistance. Results: A total of 51.4% of the subjects presented high rates of anxiety and 36% depression. Worry (73.7%), fear (72.8%), anxiety and sadness (56.1%) were the most frequent emotions expressed. Around 74.1% of the sample felt very satisfied with the healthcare services and 94.6% felt supported by their health team. A 40.7% of the patients disagreed with telemedicine assessment, while 33.7% had predominantly a positive perception. Conclusions: Oncology patients considered that COVID-19 pandemic has negatively affected their emotional status and quality of life. Getting to know patients’ opinions about telemedicine may aid in facilitating care and improving its design to provide better and more efficient care.

Artificial intelligence and medicine: The need for interpretable models

The pandemic has provided clear examples of the potential of AI for the health sector, as well as some of its issues, largely derived from the use of black box models. In some cases, there are no reasonable alternatives, as in image and speech processing. However, in many other instances it would be more profitable to try to focus the developments on Interpretable AI, which could be used more directly for the confirmation of knowledge or for the generation of new hypotheses that can be tested with subsequent experiments. © Global Knowledge Academics, authors. All rights reserved.