Exploring Patient and Caregiver Perspectives and Experiences with Financial Toxicity.

Objectives:
Aim 1: To explore patient perspectives on the implementation of FT screening, educational and navigation programming.
We will interview a purposive sample of patients to include minority and those at highest risk of FT (12-14 African Americans (AA), 12-14 with low-income/education, 12-14 employed at time of diagnosis, total approximately 40 patients) in NJ. We will aim to understand their experiences related to FT, how this impacts their disease management, and what clinical support has been provided.

Aim 2: To understand caregiver experiences of financial toxicity viewing FT as a family problem.
We will interview a purposive group of heme-onc patient caregivers (12-14 AA, 12-14 low-income/education, total approximately 20-30 caregivers) in NJ. Caregiver interviews will elicit the changes that occurred within the family system to accommodate the changes in the families financial reality and explore potential clinical interventions that could mitigate these impacts.
Aim 3: To identify organizational and community level barriers to implementation of financial navigation in cancer centers.
We will purposively sample key stakeholders (n=8-10 physicians, nurses, social workers, pharmacists and administrators) in CINJ and RWJBH clinical operations to engage them in a discussion to reflect on our findings from Aim 1 & 2 and to identify key barriers/facilitators to inform implementation strategy recommendations to be tested in the next phase of our research. This iterative process involving stakeholders will help us develop a targeted FT navigation program.

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