Cancer nursing
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By receiving palliative treatment over time, a growing number of people with advanced gastrointestinal cancer are living longer. An image of palliative care, often existing in the public, as being exclusively for the dying could thus be particularly challenging in relation to patients' making sense of receiving palliative treatment over time. ⋯ The attention of health professionals must be directed at recognizing and enhancing patients' ways of seeking knowledge to help them make sense of receiving palliative treatment. Person-centered activities need to be developed.
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Multicenter Study
Nursing practice environment and outcomes for oncology nursing.
It is commonly assumed that oncology nurses experience high job-related burnout and high turnover because their work involves inherent stressors such as caring for patients with serious and often life-threatening illness. ⋯ Improving hospital practice environments holds significant potential to improve nurse well-being, retention, and quality of care. Specifically, hospitals should consider preceptor programs and continuing education and increase nurses' participation in hospital decision making.
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Multicenter Study
Pain in outpatients treated for breast cancer: prevalence, pharmacological treatment, and impact on quality of life.
Cancer pain is an unmitigated clinical phenomenon. Despite available guidelines, variability exists in treating cancer pain. ⋯ The risks and benefits of coadministration of traditional and adjuvant analgesics need to be determined. Other treatment modalities in conjunction with pharmacological treatment are needed, considering negative effects of adjuvant analgesics on pain and quality of life.
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Two prevalent unmet supportive care needs reported by the non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) population include the need to manage fatigue and attain adequate exercise to meet the physical demands of daily living. Yet, there are no guidelines for routine rehabilitative support to address fatigue and exercise for persons with NSCLC during the critical transition from hospital to home after thoracotomy. ⋯ Beginning evidence suggests that a light-intensity in-home walking and balance intervention after hospitalization for thoracotomy for NSCLC is a potentially effective rehabilitative CRF self-management intervention. Next steps include testing of this health-promoting self-management intervention in a larger-scale randomized controlled trial.
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Cancer-related fatigue (CRF) is associated with negative health outcomes and decreased health-related quality of life; however, few longitudinal studies have investigated molecular-genetic mechanisms of CRF. ⋯ These findings identify possible pathways and early biomarkers for targeting novel interventions for CRF.