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The Power of Social Support in Cancer Care

Why connection is as vital as treatment

Mental health professionals consistently emphasise the value of a strong social support network. Social support is among the strongest predictors of emotional well-being and overall quality of life. It refers to the extent to which our social and emotional needs are met through the people and communities around us, such as family, friends, colleagues, and groups that share our values and experiences.

Group interventions, for example, have been shown to reduce psychological stress by providing individuals with chronic illnesses the opportunity to connect and share experiences (Jackson et al., 2019). Studies have found that cancer patients who felt more supported by family, friends, or their community experienced less distress, coped more effectively, and had a greater sense of control during treatment. Tangible support, in particular, was more significant for older patients, who may face greater physical challenges due to age or disability (Ahmad et al., 2013).

Furthermore, social support fosters optimism and resilience, which are key factors that help patients adapt to illness. By strengthening hope and inner confidence, social connections help protect against anxiety and depression, acting as a buffer against the emotional impact of stress (Ruiz-Rodríguez et al., 2022).

But what comes first — support or coping? The systematic review by Bottaro and colleagues (2023) suggests the relationship is bidirectional: people who receive strong support cope better, and those who cope better are more likely to seek and maintain strong relationships. It’s a cycle of connection that reinforces recovery.

The source of support also plays a crucial role. Patients often view family, friends, and partners as the most important sources of support for coping with diagnosis and treatment. However, when the type of support offered doesn’t align with the patient’s needs, it can feel less meaningful or even unhelpful.

While loved ones form the core of emotional care, healthcare professionals are often the first and most consistent source of reassurance. According to the literature, patients who feel heard, respected, and well-informed by their medical team cope more effectively and experience less anxiety. Ruiz-Rodríguez and colleagues highlight that optimism and resilience grow when medical staff communicate openly and offer encouragement. Compassionate communication from healthcare providers strengthens patients’ ability to manage their illness, creating a positive feedback loop between support and wellbeing (Bottaro et al., 2023).

At Kapa3, we witness this truth daily. Through our community programs, research, and advocacy, we work to create environments where no one faces cancer alone. Social support is not only emotional, it’s practical, cultural, and profoundly human. Healing doesn’t happen only in hospitals; it happens in homes, workplaces, and communities.

References

Ahmad, M., Khan, M. A., & Shirazi, M. (2013). Perception of Social Support by Cancer Patients. International Journal of Psychology and Behavioral Sciences, 3(5), 115–122. https://doi.org/10.5923/j.ijpbs.20130305.01

Bottaro, R., Craparo, G., & Faraci, P. (2023). What is the direction of the association between social support and coping in cancer patients? A systematic review. Journal of Health Psychology, 28(6), 135910532211311. https://doi.org/10.1177/13591053221131180

Jackson, M., Jones, D., Dyson, J., & Macleod, U. (2019). Facilitated group work for people with long-term conditions: A systematic review of benefits from studies of group-work interventions. British Journal of General Practice, 69(682), 363–372. https://doi.org/10.3399/bjgp19x702233

Ruiz-Rodríguez, I., Hombrados-Mendieta, I., Melguizo-Garín, A., & Martos-Méndez, M. J. (2022). The importance of social support, optimism and resilience on the quality of life of cancer patients. Frontiers in Psychology, 13. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.833176

Article by: Despina Chrysostomidou, Psychologist for Kapa3 Research Insights

The new OECD report (2025) highlights Greece’s challenges and priorities in cancer

The new OECD report (2025) highlights Greece’s challenges and priorities in cancer, comparing them with other European countries.

Key points:

Increased incidence: Greece records ~67,000 new cancer diagnoses and ~36,000 deaths annually (2022 data). By 2050, cases are expected to increase by 36%.
Risk factors: Smoking, obesity, poor diet, air pollution, low HPV vaccination coverage.
Early diagnosis: There are programs for breast, cervical, and colorectal cancer, but they are not yet sufficiently developed or sustainable beyond 2025.
Inequalities in care: Staff shortages, geographical inequalities, high out-of-pocket costs, difficulties in access for vulnerable groups.
Survivors & caregivers: There is no organized strategy for the quality of life of survivors, while caregivers are overburdened. The “right to be forgotten” does not yet apply in Greece.
Data & policy: Until recently, there was no national cancer registry. Greece does not yet have a comprehensive National Cancer Plan, unlike many other European countries.

Conclusion:
Greece is called upon to:

– strengthen prevention and population-based screening,

– reduce inequalities in access,

– support survivors and caregivers,

– and develop a holistic national cancer plan with clear targets and evaluation.

The report clearly shows that the country needs greater investment, better organization, and integration of actions into European planning.

See the report in detail here 22087cfa-en (1)

The main points are given in the file below by the Kapa3 team. OOSA 2025 REPORT

Palliative Care in Cancer: Ensuring Quality of Life Alongside Treatment

Palliative Care in Cancer: Ensuring Quality of Life Alongside Treatment

The editorial underlines the vital role of palliative care in cancer management. While advances in oncology have improved survival, many patients still face significant physical, emotional, and social challenges. Palliative care focuses on relieving symptoms such as pain, fatigue, and anxiety, while also supporting families and caregivers.

Research shows that early integration of palliative care improves patients’ quality of life, helps them tolerate demanding treatments, and even extends survival in some cases. It also facilitates better communication between patients and healthcare providers and reduces unnecessary hospitalizations and costs.

Despite this evidence, palliative care remains underused, often mistaken for end-of-life care only. In Greece, until recently it was not formally part of the National Health System, and existing services remain limited. However, the 2022 legal framework and the position paper of the Hellenic Society of Medical Oncology stress the urgent need for wider integration, more training for oncologists, and stronger policy support.

Ultimately, oncology success should not be measured only in survival rates but also in ensuring dignity, comfort, and holistic support for patients throughout their journey.

CANCER MAY CONTROL YOUR BODY FOR A WHILE, BUT ΝΟΤ YOUR SOUL…

We dreamed it, we organized it and we finally accomplished it!

Kapa3, always thinking and implementing actions whose main priority and beneficiaries are the patients with cancer, overcoming barriers, social, economic, and social and cultural characteristics! Cancer has no gender, no country, no color, no religion!!!

The team of Kapa3 could not ignore the challenges and needs of people who are forced to leave their countries of origin and, having the problems of their disease out of their priorities, put themselves in danger, crossing the borders of our country, hoping for a better and safer future.

Thus, studying the needs of these people, the group of professionals of KAPA3, being active and present in the wider region of Macedonia and Thrace, submitted a proposal for the implementation of actions in these areas, targeting the refugees and migrants of the region.

With great pleasure, we received the response of the King Baudouin Foundation, which recognized in this proposal our vision and approved funding to support and develop the Cancer Patient Guidance Centre-Kapa3, to provide immediate assistance to refugees and migrants crossing the borders of our country.

Together we can achieve the impossible! Looking cancer in the eye and fighting every day together, is a small but important battle for life, against cancer!

More specifically: The development of the existing network, the addition of mental health professionals, and the development of actions and activities in new places, with new partners, will allow us to help much more in the process of better and more complete treatment of the incidents and difficulties we face.

With funding from the King Baudouin Foundation, over the next 6 months, we will strengthen our network of psychologists, sociologists, and social workers, with a focus on the 15-24 age group, to continue providing primary care and support throughout their treatment. Part of the funding will be used to translate the Kapa3 online portal into at least two languages, in addition to English, with Ukrainian being the first, so that our citizen’s accessibility to any portal of the Public Health System is immediate and seamless.

The Organization has a website and an app where it provides general support and information as well as personalized support to each beneficiary. The staffing of the network with permanent personnel will become the basis for the successful targeting, which is, No One Feels Alone! The activation of psychological support for patients, the categorization of patients by age and the activation of actions to solve additional problems related to each of these age groups are some of the actions that we are ready to take to support these vulnerable groups!

We are well aware that the Greek health system and the support of medical care for cancer patients provided mainly in the country’s public hospitals, given high care costs and economic conditions, are not chosen by a significant number of patients, mainly immigrants, and refugees. The fact that Kapa3 operates in the structures and departments of hospitals that exclusively support cancer patients allows us to be able to record cases and extract qualitative and quantitative data and results to improve and create new actions in this direction.

Our vision has inspired and found support beyond borders! Cancer can control the body of patients for a while, but the soul, which strengthens the power in the battle with cancer, cannot be controlled!!!

Δελτίο Τύπου EN Δελτίο Τύπου EN

September has been established as Childhood Cancer Awareness Month.

Childhood Cancer Awareness Month.

It is a rare disease, according to the Hellenic Society of Pediatric Hematology – Oncology (EEPAO), but with serious consequences for both patients and their families. A disease that can be defeated but often with painful and long-term efforts and serious immediate and delayed complications.

The numbers are indicative: 300-350 new diagnoses every year in Greece, 35000 throughout Europe with 6000 children dying due to cancer. The Pediatric Oncologists-Hematologists, Elena Solomou and Antonis Kattamis (Professor NKUA) report that in early 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic resulted in the research community turning to a new path of research approach.

In Lancet Oncology, the work of Sheena Mukkada and partners has shown that the scientific community is united for the common good at this difficult time. This prospective study analyzed data from children and adolescents (<19 years) with cancer and COVID-19 around the world. Typically, data from approximately 1500 patients from 131 hospitals in 45 countries, including patients from Greece, were used. 259 (19.9%) of the patients had a severe or critical infection, while 50 (3.8%) patients died. Comparing the data with adults, mortality in adults with cancer is 28%, much higher than in children.

Childhood cancer must be a priority for any strategic planning of each country’s health system. These diseases in childhood are treatable, with overall survival at 80% in high-income countries. But when the right resources are lacking, such as in low-income and middle-income countries (where about three-quarters of the global number of childhood cancer is recorded), only 20-30% of individuals have long-term survival. Delays in early detection, poor access to diagnostic services in the absence of full access to required cancer medicines, higher rates of comorbidity (e.g. malnutrition, infections and poverty) as well as refusal or abandonment of treatment are common, resulting in increased morbidity and mortality. All these factors result in lower survival rates and higher morbidity rates than in high-income countries.

The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated inequalities in access to each country’s health system despite efforts to tackle childhood cancer. With the mandate given by governments in the 2018 cancer resolution, the WHO, together with major international childhood cancer hospitals, set a goal of treating at least 60% of all children with cancer worldwide and reducing pain for all children.

The data from this study enable us to understand that during the pandemic there is a unique opportunity to develop and implement strategies tailored to specific health systems and to reduce inequalities in diagnosis and access to medication in children with cancer globally.

The scientific community makes concerted efforts to achieve high cure rates, with the best possible quality of life and the minimum possible long-term complications. Genetic and molecular biology are now the necessary element of diagnosis and treatment in a large part of neoplasms of children and adolescents. Personalized treatment, which will further increase the chances of cure for young patients, reducing immediate and ultimate toxicity, is a goal that may become a reality in the near future.

In this context, HSPHO has taken initiatives to strengthen cooperation between the oncology departments of the Territory and the recognition of our country as an equal member of European scientific organizations. It participates in international collaborative treatment protocols, thus ensuring access to innovative medicines and therapies under proper and organized supervision. Of course, the process of Greece’s full, equal access to each of these protocols comes at a high cost. Fortunately, however, in the long, arduous struggle of the children and their families, over the years, valuable helpers and supporters, associations and volunteers have stood by.

The understaffing of the Pediatric Hematology / Oncology Departments in medical, nursing and paramedical staff, the lack of public structures for targeted molecular tests, the lack of financial coverage of specialized tests and the difficulty of access to innovative medicines are problems for which we have repeatedly informed the competent bodies.

Each of us can help to the best of our ability! You can become a volunteer blood donor, or volunteer bone marrow donor, or help associations and organizations supporting children and their families, either through sponsorships or by donating some of his time.

Any effort to improve the care of children with cancer is welcome and important!

Learn more:

https://www.iatronet.gr/article/104037/paidiatrikos-karkinos-kai-pandhmia-covid19

https://www.iatronet.gr/eidiseis-nea/epistimi-zwi/news/52168/septemvrios-minas-efaisthitopoiisis-gia-ton-karkino-tis-paidikis-ilikias.html