Learning to live with cancer in European countries

Patient group education is an evidence-based and powerful intervention for supporting and guiding patients toward art understanding of the cancer expe rience. An education program for patients and families, entitled Learning t o Live With Cancer, has been developed and evaluated in a Swedish research project, and implemented clinically. The program is a core model with a str ucture that allows flexibility in addressing learning needs. It has grown i nto a pan-European program through "training the trainers" courses, and is now available in many countries. This has taken the project into a new phas e, since Europe is characterized not only by showing many, different countr ies, but also by showing cultural diversity and variety in ethical norms. T he aim of this phase thus was to assess the presence of core-model divergen ces conditioned by cultural values and norms, and if present, to investigat e adjustments proposed to increase the relevance of the program to best sui t patients' learning needs in different cultures. A questionnaire was distr ibuted to former participants in "training the trainers" courses. The findi ngs indicate that only minor divergences are present, and that the core mod el thus has the potential to meet the learning needs of cancer patients in many cultures.