Research into the psychosocial consequences of cancer and cancer treatment is a rapidly expanding field of inquiry. To gain an overview of the nature and scope of such research in Europe, a survey was undertaken of the membership of the European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer Study Group on Quality of Life. The questionnaire yielded information regarding (1) the type of research being undertaken (clinical trial, descriptive, evaluative, or methodological study), (2) the types of cancer being studied, (3) sample sizes and the sociodemographic characteristics of the samples, (4) the aspects of the quality of life assessed, (5) the nature of the data-collection techniques employed, and (6) the range of methodological and practical problems encountered in conducting research in psychosocial oncology. Implications of the findings for the conduct of psychosocial research in the cancer field are discussed.
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Aaronson et al. (1986) studied this question.