Committee Research strategy 

What research themes have our collective focus, and do we want to work on as POCON? The ’Research strategy’ committee aims to answer this question. Rather than topics, we aim to select overarching themes that are relevant to all researchers and are ideal to work on together. As a starter, the committee sent out a survey among Dutch senior researchers working in the field of psychosocial oncology. The three most frequently selected themes were: implementation of interventions, social inequality and inclusivity, and personalizing treatment. Next, the committee developed a network, based on the keywords of the last ten publications by senior researchers in the field of psychosocial oncology. This network provides a comprehensive reflection of research currently being worked on (see figure below). Not unexpectedly, survivorship, palliative care and quality of life are the most common themes. Only keywords that occur more than seven times are included in the network. To discover the current gaps and the next steps in our research in the coming years, we will have to look at the keywords that have not yet made it into the network. The plan is to further develop the network of keywords and put these identified research themes alongside the agendas of the Dutch Cancer Collective (2023) and the Taskforce Cancer Survivorship (2020), among others, to eventually draw up a POCON knowledge agenda. With this, the committee hopes to lay a foundation for a great collaboration and increase the potential to obtain funding for research.

Do you have questions, or would you like to contribute to this committee? Please contact Melanie Schellekens.

Email: M.P.J.Schellekens@tilburguniversity.edu