Scanxiety describes the fear/distress that cancer patients experience when anticipating upcoming medical imaging and waiting for the results. Scanxiety affects not only patients but also their loved ones, as cancer and its treatment also affect loved ones. The impact of scanxiety has rarely been studied for routine surveillance scans during cancer survival.

The interdisciplinary research team is currently developing several research phases around scanxiety:

• The validation of a scanxiety-discomfort measurement instrument
• A longitudinal national study (with repeated measurement at different points in the scan process) among cancer patients and relatives using the measuring instrument.
• Organising co-creation workshops together with patients, relatives and care providers to identify interventions that allow reducing scanxiety at different points in the scan pathway.  The principles of Design Thinking will be used in these workshops.
• Implementing and evaluating these interventions.