Cancer Care Team Functioning during COVID-19: A Narrative Literature Review and Synthesis

Abstract

Amid pandemics, health care teams face unprecedented challenges, requiring significant efforts to sustain optimal functioning and navigate rapid practice changes. It is therefore crucial to identify factors affecting team functioning in these contexts. The present narrative review more specifically summarizes the literature on key elements of cancer teams’ functioning during COVID-19. The search strategy involved four main databases (i.e., Medline OVID, EMBASE, PsycINFO, and CINAHL), as well as Google Scholar, from January 2000 to September 2022. Twenty-three publications were found to be relevant. Each was read thoroughly, and its content summarized. Across publications, three key themes emerged: (1) swiftly adopting virtual technology for communication and interprofessional collaboration, (2) promoting team resilience, and (3) encouraging self-care and optimizing team support. Our findings underscore key team functioning elements to address in future pandemics. More research is needed to document the perspectives of broader-based team members (such as patients and lay carers) to inform more comprehensive evidence-based team functioning guidelines.