A Rehabilitation Education Care Program on Return to Work Among Head and Neck Cancer Survivors

Overview

The purpose of this study will to identify factors (performance ability, physical function, psychosocial function, fear of cancer progression, social support, demographic characteristics, and disease-related characteristics) that impact the Return to work and work status in survivors of HNC within one year after completion treatment. Head and neck cancer survivors who have attended a rehabilitation education care program (RECP) intervention will have better performance ability, physical function, psychosocial function, fear of cancer progress, social support, and lower return to work to patients who not attended with the intervention.

The purpose of this 2-year project will involve a randomized controlled clinical trial to evaluate the 3-months RECP. Eligible participants will be recruited from initial completion treatment to 6 months after completion treatment and randomized into a control group and an experimental group, with the control group patients receiving routine hospital care and the experimental group patients receiving the 3-months RECP. Outcomes will be assessed using Return to Work Barrier Scale (RTWBS), Fear of Progression Questionnaire (FoP-Q-SF), Social Support Scale (SSS), University of Washington Quality of Life Scale (UW-QOL), Karnofsky's Performance Score (KPS), Katz Activities of Daily Living Scale (ADL), and Instrument Activities of Daily Living Scale (IADL). Subjective data will be collected at four time points: baseline (6 months after completion of treatment)(T0) and then 9, 12, and 18months after completion of treatment (T1, T2, and T3, respectively). Objective data will be assessed at the same time points. The mixed-model repeated measure ANOVA will be used to analyze the data. The investigators plan to recruit 30 subjects for each group.