Objectives Finding ‘kinder’ cancer treatments is the James Lind Alliance’s Top Priority in children’s cancer. Cancer treatments have been described as ‘kind’ for decades, but the word ‘kind’ means different things to patients, families, and clinicians. This study investigated how published research defines ‘kind’ cancer treatments. Design This rapid review aimed to identify studies that evaluated the ‘kindness ’ of cancer treatments in both adults and children. The strategy used search terms to represent the concepts: ‘cancer’ and ‘kindness’. Studies describing instruments (e.g., self-reported/clinician-assessed tools) that measured the ‘kindness’ of treatments for individuals with cancer were included. Duplicate title/abstract screening was conducted; full-text screening and data extraction were completed by one reviewer. Results were summarised narratively. Results Of 1485 records retrieved by the searches; 32 were eligible at title/abstract screening. Of the studies reviewed at full-text stage, no studies describing instruments that measured the ‘kindness’ of treatments were identified. Conclusions This review highlights the absence of evidence available on measures of ‘kindness’ in cancer treatments – something that is important for patients/families to consider during treatment decision making. Future research should explore what ‘kindness’ means in relation to cancer treatments within this setting and how this could potentially be measured in order to provide a more holistic perspective on treatment options to aid decision making.
Shepherd et al. (Mon,) studied this question.