Abstract
The purpose of this study is to clarify the support group (SG) participants' experiences in SG and the SG's evaluation method through Japanese literature review in order to examine the evaluation method of SG for cancer patients. The literature objects were as follows such as "research which clarifies SG participants' experiences" was 12, and "research which evaluate SG" was 8. Common experiences among many SG participants were five such as "experiences of catharsis and sharing through participants' gathering". Scales were used for SG's evaluation in many cases both short term and longitudinal evaluation. Quantitative evaluation with scales was effective for SG evaluation. But the necessity of qualitative and continuous evaluation for participants' experiences beyond scale was suggested, especially for the longitudinal evaluation.
