Psychosocial dimensions of outpatient cancer nursing: Implications of interprofessional collaboration
Abstract
The increasing shift of cancer care from inpatient to outpatient settings has substantially reshaped the psychosocial landscape of oncology nursing. While outpatient treatment models enhance efficiency and continuity of medical care, they also place greater responsibility on outpatient oncology nurses to identify and respond to patients’ psychological and social needs within time-constrained and fragmented clinical environments. This narrative review synthesizes current literature on the psychosocial dimensions of outpatient cancer nursing, with particular emphasis on the role of interprofessional collaboration in supporting psycho-oncology-oriented care. The review highlights that cancer patients receiving outpatient care commonly experience psychological distress, fear of recurrence, role disruption, and unmet emotional needs, which may remain under-recognized in routine clinical encounters. Outpatient oncology nurses occupy a pivotal position at the intersection of clinical treatment delivery, therapeutic communication, and psychosocial assessment, enabling early identification of distress and facilitation of supportive interventions. However, the effectiveness of psychosocial nursing care is strongly influenced by the structure and quality of interprofessional collaboration involving oncologists, psychologists, social workers, and palliative care teams. Drawing on psycho-oncology principles, this review emphasizes that psychosocial care in outpatient oncology should be conceptualized as a shared interprofessional responsibility rather than an individual nursing task. A psychosocially integrated conceptual framework is proposed to illustrate how nursing communication and collaborative care pathways interact to address patient needs across the outpatient cancer trajectory. Strengthening interprofessional collaboration, enhancing psychosocial competencies in nursing education, and embedding psycho-oncological perspectives into outpatient workflows are critical to improving patient well-being, care continuity, and quality of life.
Copyright (c) 2026 Weiwei Yin, Yicui Wang, Dongli Lu
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
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