ORIGINAL ARTICLE Psychologists’ views of inter-disciplinary psychosocial communication within the cancer care team B. Thewes & P. Butow & E. Davis & J. Turner & C. Mason Received: 28 November 2013 /Accepted: 26 May 2014 # Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2014 Abstract Background Little is known about how psychologists work- ing in cancer care centres communicate clinical information to other members of the multidisciplinary team or what informa- tion is communicated. Purpose This study surveyed Australian cancer care psychol- ogists regarding their communication practices and their views on barriers to and facilitators of effective inter- disciplinary communication. Methods Psychologists were invited to complete an online survey containing purpose-designed items that addressed study aims. Results Forty-four psychologists completed the survey. Psychologists’ most common method of recording initial con- sultations was in patient medical records, with 69 % of re- spondents recording notes in either most of the time or all of the time. Twenty-two percent of psychologists said they did not regularly feedback the results of an initial assessment to a referrer and more than 40 % used verbal and e-mail commu- nication to do so. Conclusions This study provides data that will assist in the development of guidelines for inter-professional communica- tion between psychologists and other members of the cancer care team. Keywords Oncology . Multidisciplinarycare . Psychosocial . Communication . Health information exchange . Psychologist Introduction Multidisciplinary cancer care has been shown to improve the quality of life and clinical outcomes of people diagnosed with cancer [1–3]. Psychologists are core members of the multidis- ciplinary cancer care team, and psychosocial interventions have been shown to improve patient outcomes [4]. While written communication between psychologists and other health professionals in the cancer care team is acknowledged as vital in ensuring the effective functioning of the team and in fulfilling the psychologist’ s ethical and legal requirements [5, 6], no study has previously examined the nature of this communication. Very little research has been conducted to date on psycho- social communication within medical teams. Most previous studies in psycho-oncology have examined communication between primary and specialist medical practitioners or be- tween specialists [7–12]. These studies found that many GPs, surgeons and oncologists want to receive psychosocial infor- mation; however, this information was often missing from letters received from other medical staff [7–12], and many letters between medical staff contain redundant information or unnecessary detail [9].The use of proforma letters has been demonstrated to improve communication between medical staff [11, 13], yet no studies to date have examined the use B. Thewes : P. Butow : E. Davis Centre for Medical Psychology and Evidence-Based Decision-making, University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia J. Turner School of Medicine, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia C. Mason Sydney West Cancer Network, Sydney, NSW, Australia C. Mason Sydney Medical School, University of Sydney, Westmead, NSW 2145, Australia B. Thewes (*) School of Psychology, Transient Building (F12), University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia e-mail: belinda.thewes@sydney.edu.au Support Care Cancer DOI 10.1007/s00520-014-2299-8