Now what? Toward an integrated research and practice agenda in distress screening.

Significant gains have been made in the detection and treatment of cancer, contributing to increased survival, but a cancer diagnosis and treatment may be accompanied by physical and psychosocial after-effects. Distress screening has been championed as a mechanism to identify patients with high levels of psychosocial morbidity for subsequent assessment and psychosocial care delivery. However, implementation of distress screening has been variable, in scope and in the consistency and quality of metrics and methods used. This capstone article identifies challenges in the measurement and implementation of distress screening and examines future opportunities for research and implementation.