Participants were recruited from patients referred to a hospital-based multi-disciplinary supportive care team specializing in treatment of patients with nutritional depletion and functional decline.
The use of supportive multi-disciplinary health professionals has been found to be a key strength in successful group interventions, but research has also shown that another important factor is the support and comfort exchanged between the family caregivers participating in the groups [ 20- 22].
Multi-disciplinary services are recommended to meet supportive needs in addition to clinical care.
Such a goal would likely be best accomplished using a consensus methodology among a multi-disciplinary group of experts in pediatric oncology supportive care.
Implications of these findings suggest that the CCSAS training should be conducted in a multi-disciplinary setting and accompanied by on-going supportive supervision and follow-up to ensure improvements in HCP attitudes, knowledge, confidence, and practices.
Although the survivors involved in this study were satisfied with consultant-led follow-up with its clinical focus, we recommend that future services take a multi-disciplinary approach to encompass both clinical and supportive needs across primary, secondary and tertiary services.
The latter finding also represents an opportunity for project advocates to increase maintenance of '10,000 Steps', e.g. by providing supportive services or the encouragement of multi-disciplinary work-groups which could foster project maintenance [ 37].
Trial recruitment will be supported through referrals from multi-disciplinary melanoma teams.
Addressing these deeper issues will require a critical and multi-disciplinary discussion about the design of just social and political institutions and norms supportive of complex global health efforts.
ICU management remains supportive and improved outcomes may be attributable more to advances in multi-disciplinary team working, mechanical ventilation strategies, careful fluid management, and infection control.
Organising multi-disciplinary care in Australia is difficult, even when GPs are relatively well supported [ 3].
