Committee Personalized Psychosocial Care

Chair: Belle de Rooij 

Members: Saar Hommes, Floortje Mols, Meeke Hoedjes & Melanie Schellekens 

The Personalized Psychosocial Care committee aims to identify optimal strategies to tailor care to the individual cancer patient, ensuring that scarce and costly care is delivered more effectively and efficiently. Psychosocial care is still too often offered as a ‘one-size-fits-all’ solution, while each patient’s needs, preferences, and circumstances are unique. 

Our mission is clear: every cancer patient should receive psychosocial care that truly matches who they are, where they are in their treatment, and what matters most to them. 

As a first step, we started working on a scoping review to explore how personalization is currently applied in psychosocial oncology. We aim to understand in which aspects of care personalization is used, how interventions are adapted to the individual, and where opportunities exist for improvement. By mapping current approaches and identifying knowledge gaps, our committee aims to guide future research and inform clinical practice, ensuring that psychosocial oncology innovations truly meet the needs of the people they are meant to help. 

In the next phase, our committee will work to translate these insights into new research projects that address these gaps and test innovative, personalized approaches in real-world settings. Ultimately, our goal is to ensure that the principles of personalization are not only discussed in research papers, but also implemented in practice—so that patients benefit directly from the advances in psychosocial oncology. 

Do you have questions or want to contribute to this working group? If so, please contact Belle de Rooij 

Email: B.deRooij@iknl.nl