Patterns and Predictors of Healthcare Use among Adolescent and Young Adult Cancer Survivors versus a Community Comparison Group.

Healthcare use (HCU) during survivorship can mitigate adolescent and young adult (AYA) cancer survivors' (aged 15-39 years) risk of medical and psychosocial late effects, but this is understudied. We surveyed 93 Australian AYA post-treatment cancer survivors (Mage = 22.0 years, SD = 3.5; 55.9% female) and a comparison sample of 183 non-matched AYAs (Mage = 19.7, SD = 3.2; 70.5% female) on their HCU, medication use, depression/anxiety, and general functioning. Relative to our comparison AYAs, a higher proportion of our survivor group reported medical HCU (community-delivered: 65.6% versus 47.0%, p = 0.003; hospital-delivered: 31.2% versus 20.3%, p = 0.044) and mental HCU (53.8% vs. 23.5%; p < 0.0001) in the past six months. A higher proportion of our survivors reported taking medications within the past six months than our comparison AYAs (61.3% vs. 42.1%, p = 0.003) and taking more types (p < 0.001). Vitamin/supplement use was most common followed by psychotropic medications. Our survivor group reported lower depression (p = 0.001) and anxiety symptoms (p = 0.003), but similar work/study participation (p = 0.767) to our comparison AYAs. Across groups, psychological distress was associated with higher mental HCU (p = 0.001). Among survivors, those who were female, diagnosed with brain/solid tumors and who had finished treatment more recently reported greater HCU. Future research should establish whether this level of HCU meets AYAs' survivorship needs.