Cancer Patient Education Research Articles

Breast Cancer Patient Education Service

Breast Cancer Patient Education Service

Brain function, learning styles, and cancer patient education

As cancer care moves into the outpatient setting and hospital stays are shortened, patients and their family members are expected to take on tremendous responsibilities in providing their own self-care. At the same time, stress and anxiety about the diagnosis of cancer, the disease itself, and cancer therapy can effect learning. Information processing, learning styles, and learning barriers need to be considered when developing and implementing cancer education programs.

Information and education across the phases of cancer care

Providing information to the cancer patient, is important but it is only one facet of patient education. Cancer patients also need to be taught new skills and shown new ways to cope. Patients who are not only informed, but are also educated and have more knowledge about their disease, are more likely to cooperate with treatment regimens and experience less stress and anxiety. One approach to identifying the content of cancer patient education is to focus on the various phases of cancer care. This approach provides a way for the patient and family to learn those aspects that are critical to coping with and adapting to the impact of the disease and its treatment. A number of researchers have begun to build the knowledge base important in identifying the appropriate educational content, methods for teaching, and approaches to evaluating teaching effectiveness. Future studies will continue to provide the scientific foundation for this most important aspect of cancer care.

Selecting a systematic approach for educating hospitalized cancer patients

Establishing cancer patient education programs for hospitalized cancer patients may follow a six-stage process that includes planning and strategy selection, selecting channels and materials, developing materials and pretesting, implementation, assessing effectiveness, and obtaining feedback to refine the program. The extent to which each of the stages is followed depends upon which stages are appropriate for the program and the consensus of hospital management.

Establishing a cancer patient education system for ambulatory patients

Communication, coordination, and education are fundamental components of ambulatory care nursing. Yet the level of activity in most ambulatory care settings prohibits focusing exclusively on patient education. Rather, patient teaching procedures, tools, and programs must be incorporated with other activities. Several considerations for effective outpatient education include learning needs, barriers to learning, assessment of available resources (eg, environmental, human, financial), delineating roles for providing information, and selecting teaching tools and methods.

Patient education: History, development, and current directions of the American Cancer Society and the National Cancer Institute

With their unique perspectives in the identification, design, promotion, and evaluation of cancer patient education programs and services, the National Cancer Institute and the American Cancer Society have the abilities to meet a wide variety of cancer patient education needs. With federal support and connections to national organizations and the comprehensive and clinical cancer center networks, the National Cancer Institute has access to nationwide experts in medical care and the resources to develop, design, and promote quality, state-of-the-art education programs. The American Cancer Society, with its strong volunteer community base, can pull together local expertise and collaborate with local organizations to meet the special needs of local population groups. In addition, the American Cancer Society volunteer committees have the flexibility to individualize programming and resources to answer specific patient/family education problems. As the number of people affected by cancer continues to raise, and as organizations realize the need to maximize their resources with collaborative efforts, the National Cancer Institute and the American Cancer Society are challenged to focus their energies on the patient education initiatives that build upon and combine their unique strengths.

Three Strategies to Promote Cancer Screening

Many studies have tested the efficacy of intervention strategies for improving physicians' performance of cancer screening tests. Less attention has been paid to the feasibility of strategy implementation. Three important dimensions of feasibility are acceptability to the targeted audience, logistical difficulties, and cost and cost-effectiveness. We assessed the relative feasibility along these dimensions of three intervention strategies shown previously to be efficacious among 62 internal medicine resident physicians. Two strategies, medical record audit with feedback and computerized cancer screening reminders were aimed at physicians directly, and one, patient education, indirectly through their patients. While all three interventions were acceptable to the physicians, implementation of the audit with feedback intervention was logistically more difficult and more costly than either the cancer screening reminders or patient education interventions. The average cost per additional screening test (beyond the number that would have been performed without intervention) was $50.40 for audit with feedback, $18.19 for cancer screening reminders, and $51.20 for patient education. Overall, the cancer screening reminder intervention was the most feasible of the three strategies.

A model for improving cancer patient education

Adjustment to cancer requires modification of behavior that may be aided through patient education. Numerous programs have been developed to meet this need; however, studies show that even after being taught, patients are not well informed. It seems that the process of educating cancer patients needs to be improved. Authors suggest a progression of psychosocial stages of adjustment to serious illness during which specific behaviors are exhibited and coping mechanisms utilized. Understanding the nature of this process forms the basis for effective patient education since theories of adaptation describe behaviors that impact on motivation to learn, information required, and teaching methodology. Failure to attend to this variable of emotional response to the disease can prevent learning. This article integrates the theories of Weisman, Crate, Engle, and Kubler-Ross into an educational model for the cancer patient consisting of six periods. The model suggests nursing approaches, educational topics, and teaching strategies based on the patient's behavioral responses. Use of this model can improve teaching effectiveness in clinical practice by ensuring that the patient is ready to learn prior to teaching and by utilizing teaching strategies appropriate to the educational period. It can further be used as a tool to teach students of nursing how to use the stages of adjustment to chronic illness when planning patient teaching.

Cancer patient education: Reality and potential

Cancer now attacks one in three Americans, resulting in one in six deaths. Yet, until recently, few patient education programs were directed toward cancer patients. This review examines the status of cancer patient education and suggests future directions. We focus on several aspects of cancer patient education, including needs assessments and programs in treatment, rehabilitation, and continuing care and evaluation. The most comprehensive patient education programs are those directed toward patients in active treatment: one of its tasks is to help patients manage treatment side effects. A major component of rehabilitation programs is counseling patients to help them cope with the effects of cancer. Many patient education programs have performed evaluations: most reflect difficulties in one or more areas, such as selecting appropriate measures or accruing adequate sample sizes. We recommend several directions for the future, including the use of appropriate measurement tools, adequate sample sizes, multimodality programs with incorporation of psychological techniques such as relaxation training and guided imagery, and assessment of the impact of patient education programs on costs.

Adult Cancer Patient Education

This article discusses the special considerations involved in the education of adult cancer patients. The authors begin by providing a working definition of patient education, then outlining the issues that make cancer patients unique and affect their ability to learn. They also outline the topics that should be covered in cancer patient education, review aspects of planning and evaluation as they apply to patient education efforts, and identify gaps in current programs and research. The authors conclude that although the field has experienced great growth, much work remains to be done.