The hospital-based socioeconomic study to assess the financial toxicity among cancer survivors

Background: Cancer forms the second-most common cause of death worldwide. Once a patient is diagnosed with cancer, socioeconomic life of the patient is altogether changed. In developing countries, like India, as the prevalence of cancer is increasing, policies and schemes need to be incorporated to overcome the financial burden of disease. This study was aimed to know the socioeconomic burden of cancer in our country, so as to further improve the health economics. Materials and Methods: This was a prospective study done over a period of 2 years. Three thousand and twelve patients were enrolled in this study that was diagnosed with cancer on biopsy. Interview method with the help of semistructured questionnaire was used to collect the data, and IBM SPSS statistics version 20 was used to analyze this data. The Chi-square test and t-test were applied to look for correlation. Results: Three thousand and twelve patients participated in the study, and out of them, 73% of the patients were in the fourth to sixth decades. Fifty-seven percent of patients had total family income of <10,000 and when per capita income was calculated about 93% of patients had income <10,000/year. Forty-seven percent of the patients had lost fifty thousand to one lac rupees during treatment, and 73% of the patients did not receive any help from the government and were not covered under any insurance. Conclusion: Cancer is a tragic state of illness and affects generations of the patient socioeconomically in a country like India. Most of the population has to spend out-of-pocket expenditure on cancer treatment, and thus, it causes financial catastrophe on the households. Refinement of the health policies is required in concern with cancer to improve the cancer survival and to protect the families from financial hardships.