In addition, the high prevalence of physical symptoms, including lack of energy, tiredness and pain limiting physical and daily living, is quite concerning. This highlights the need to focus on early and adequate pain management and physical rehabilitation as important components of cancer care. Oncology units in the UAE should consider inculcating these specialities into multidisciplinary cancer care teams. It has also been reported that patients have several misconceptions regarding pain, specifically that increasing pain signifies disease progression, medicine to control pain may weaken the immune system and pain is inevitable for cancer patients . These beliefs identify a need for cancer support groups to address misinformation and help manage patient needs. A large body of literature demonstrates that participation in cancer support groups improves patients’ quality of life and wellbeing [22, 23]. As such, the development of this service at oncology centers throughout the UAE can serve as viable channels of information and help to meet several of the psychological needs of cancer patients.