The purpose of the national survey of Physician Attitudes Regarding the Care of Cancer Survivors (SPARCCS) is to identify perceptions, knowledge, and practices of primary care and oncology specialist physicians with respect to post-treatment follow-up care of adult cancer survivors. This can help identify opportunities to improve the care delivery experiences for both cancer survivors and the physicians who provide their health care services. The main rationale for the survey is the lack of information about survivorship care in general community clinical practice. Undertaking this survey will help advance the understanding of survivorship care by: 1) monitoring and evaluating physicians cancer control knowledge, attitudes, and practices; enhancing the understanding of data collected in other research projects on cancer survivors such as the Cancer Care Outcomes Research and Surveillance Consortium (CanCORS), the Cancer Research Network (CRN); and monitoring the progress being made toward achieving NCI strategic goals pertaining to the improvement of the quality of care for cancer survivors. The national survey will obtain current, national data on physicians knowledge, attitudes, recommendations, and practices related to follow up survivorship care for adult cancer. The target sample size for SPARCCS includes 1,100 primary care doctors, defined as family practitioners, internists, and OB/GYNs, and 1,100 medical oncologists, which also includes physicians with certification in treatment of hematological malignancies. These data will support and further NCI work in monitoring and evaluating providers cancer control knowledge, attitudes, and practices and their impact on population health; enhance understanding of data collected in ongoing, NCI-supported national survey efforts of the general population; and enable monitoring of progress toward achieving provider-related Healthy People 2010 and other major cancer control goals.
