a qualitative study exploring the experience of psychological therapists working with patients with acute myeloid leukaemia

Acute Myeloid Leukaemia (AML), and its treatment, is known to have a range of physical and psychological challenges on patients. From a patient perspective, these challenges are documented in both qualitative and quantitative research highlighting the experience of people suffering from them, and the prevalence of these issues. From these findings, psychological support, and the provision of clinical psychology services, in oncology is more common now and is recommended to meet the full biopsychosocial needs of AML patients. However, we have a limited knowledge in terms of what psychological problems are referred to clinical psychology services, and what interventions and methods are used in these services to manage these issues today. It is also not known how psychological therapists find it working with a population faced with a highly challenging condition.

By exploring the experiences of psychological therapists working with people with AML, we hope to learn more about what type of psychological issues they tend to see in their practice, and what techniques and methods they employ to support this patient group. It is hoped that knowing more about this area can support clinicians and services in this field as it can highlight challenges to be addressed or strengths of specific working practices, techniques, models. It is also hoped that this research has validating and educational value to less experienced clinicians. Likewise, by exploring the experiences of clinicians first hand, this can provide qualitative data for researchers developing and evaluating interventions in this area.