Design: Semi-structured individual interview was used to collect qualitative data.

Population, Sample, Setting, and Year: Twelve cancer patients who had received chemotherapy in two general hospitals in southern Taiwan were interviewed from September 2002 to March 2003.

Concept: Decisional Conflict, and Chemotherapy

Methods: Two interviewers conducted the interviews based on a guide covering specific topics. The length of interviews varied between 40 and 80 minutes and the whole process was audio-taped; then all recorders were transcribed verbatim to maintain data integrity and to reduce perceptual bias. The transcripts processed by content analysis as suggested by Miles and Huberman (1994).

Findings: The results indicated that the factors contributing to decisional conflict would be categorized into five themes, including “a lack of confidence in physician and treatment”, “an extreme fear about side effects of chemotherapy”, “depressed or anxious emotional state”, “feeling of lacking of family support”, “a hesitation between chemotherapy and traditional Chinese Medicine”.

Conclusions: Congruent with other research all participants expressed the choice dilemma. The major difference was most patients spent much time to seek for traditional Chinese medicine first or consider combining traditional Chinese and chemotherapy.

Implication: The finding provided a basis for clinical nurses using appropriate decision aids to facilitate shared decision-making.

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Sigma Theta Tau International
July 22-24, 2004