An understanding of how women experience their new and changed life situation is important to the support nurses give in the process of healing. Nurses need this knowledge to be better able to assist women and their families in their development of coping strategies.

The aim of this study was to describe factors defined by nurses as influential upon the development of competence and skills in supervision. Although clinical supervision has been widely studied and described during the last decade, influential factors regarding the development of supervisory competence, as defined by clinical supervisors themselves, is little documented. Focus group interviews were analysed using methods of qualitative content analysis as described by Kvale. Factors related to three areas of importance for the development of competence and skills in student supervision are defined by nurses in this study. They are didactics, role functions and organizational framework. Didactic factors described included: integration of theory and practice; reflection on clinical situations; clarification of supervision aims and student evaluation. Role function factors were described as: feelings of security and awareness in supervision, differentiation between student and supervisor roles and the meaning attached to being a role model. Framework factors included nursing faculty and clinical field expectations. An understanding of how nurses describe what they need to support their development as clinical supervisors gives a basis for the development of postgraduate education in clinical supervision. Competent clinical supervisors can be better able to support students as they build bridges between theory and practice.

The findings from this study underline the need to include emotional and social perspectives in standards for breast cancer diagnosis and treatment, and can provide a foundation for the development of user-designed health services.

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Menopausal symptoms are important concerns for breast cancer survivors, which may influence daily activities, physical comfort and sexual health. Incidence and severity ratings of menopausal symptoms contribute to our knowledge about menopause in women with cancer, but fail to fully describe the symptom experience. The purpose of this article is to broaden our understanding by describing variation in menopausal symptom distress and how women interpret and manage symptoms within the context of breast cancer. From a larger grounded theory study that explored women's responses to the experience of premature induced menopause within the context of breast cancer, the constant comparative method of analysis was used to generate a detailed contextually grounded description of the menopausal symptom experience in a sample of 27 women with breast cancer who received adjuvant therapy. Women identified a symptom profile of menstrual cycle changes, hot flashes, insomnia, vaginal dryness, dyspareunia, alterations in mood, cognition and libido, and weight gain. The majority of women reported menopausal symptoms but some women were distress free while others reported moderate to severe distress. The context of breast cancer influenced women's response to symptoms and their decision making about menopausal symptom management.