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Sunday, November 1, 2009: 3:25 PM
Learning Objective 1: The learner will be able to recognize distress as responses to hospitalization
Learning Objective 2: The learner will be able to identify the major interventions to reduce distress
Studies show that one third of cancer patients suffer from high levels of distress, but that less than 5% of them report their feelings to health care givers (Zabora et al, 2001; NCCN, 2006). In addition, the symptoms related with these patients’ emotional suffering are often under assessed (Mendes et al, 2003; Madden, 2006), since monitoring distress could be left for a second plan, given that health professionals are more focus on the physical symptoms (Clark, 2001). The aim of this study was to monitoring the distress felt by head and neck surgery patients during the post-surgery.
Method: Descriptive study. An accidental, convenience sample was selected, constituted by 32 patients in post-surgery. Distress was assessed by the distress thermometer (NCCN, 2008), in three different moments of hospitalization, and the associated problems were identified by the questionnaire proposed by the NCCN, 2008.
Results: Mean age was 62.44 years, 59.4% were male and 40.6% female. The mean level of distress decreased significantly throughout the hospitalization (4.53 at the 1st assessment and 2.78 at the moment of discharge, p=0.00). The evaluation of the related problems shows that the less compromised areas are family and spiritual concerns.
Conclusions: At admission a significant number of patients (62.5%) presented moderated and severe levels of distress, what demonstrates the importance of its assessment to all patients. Though hospitalization is associated to negative experiences, we noted that the distress level have decreased throughout the hospitalization, suggesting the need to adopt guidelines for patients’ wellbeing.
Method: Descriptive study. An accidental, convenience sample was selected, constituted by 32 patients in post-surgery. Distress was assessed by the distress thermometer (NCCN, 2008), in three different moments of hospitalization, and the associated problems were identified by the questionnaire proposed by the NCCN, 2008.
Results: Mean age was 62.44 years, 59.4% were male and 40.6% female. The mean level of distress decreased significantly throughout the hospitalization (4.53 at the 1st assessment and 2.78 at the moment of discharge, p=0.00). The evaluation of the related problems shows that the less compromised areas are family and spiritual concerns.
Conclusions: At admission a significant number of patients (62.5%) presented moderated and severe levels of distress, what demonstrates the importance of its assessment to all patients. Though hospitalization is associated to negative experiences, we noted that the distress level have decreased throughout the hospitalization, suggesting the need to adopt guidelines for patients’ wellbeing.
See more of: Community Care Issues
See more of: Oral Paper & Poster: Evidence-Based Practice Contest
See more of: Oral Paper & Poster: Evidence-Based Practice Contest