Symptom Management for Bladder Cancer in Thailand

Abstract

Understanding the symptom experiences and management strategies of people with bladder cancer is important for nurses. Awareness of outcomes of the strategies used can enable health care practitioners to provide effective advice to bladder cancer patients. We aimed to examine symptom experiences in patients with each cancer grade; to survey symptom management strategies and outcomes. This study was a cross‐sectional survey design. A total of 62 patients receiving care in a northern Thailand university hospital during December 2011 and June 2012 were recruited as subjects. Participants completed a modified questionnaire based on the framework of the symptom management model. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics. The findings revealed: (i) the three most frequent and severe symptoms in the high grade group were frequent urination, constipation and anxiety; in the low grade group were frequent urination, fatigue and anxiety: (ii) the symptom management strategies revealed correspondence in both groups as follows: for frequent urination strategies were consulting a physician, restricting fluids, using herbs and doing nothing; for constipation strategies were taking a laxative, eating tamarind, eating vegetables/high‐fibre fruits and using a suppository; for anxiety strategies were prayer, going to the temple, meditating, talking with family/friends, relaxing, taking up a hobby, resting and consulting a physician; for fatigue strategies were resting, using supplements and consulting a physician: (iii) the outcomes revealed that most of the strategies showed positive outcomes. Positive outcomes could be used as a guide in providing recommendations to patients with bladder cancer and to support further research in this area. Further work is needed to develop interventions that work for specific symptoms.

Relationships between health literacy and quality of life among survivors with breast cancer

“…QOL refers to a ‘good life’ that comprises tangible (physical) and intangible (mental) components (Meeberg, 1993). Diverse side effects that are related to treatments and comorbidities, for example, arm lymphedema (Barthakur et al, 2017; Zou et al, 2018), endometrial cancer (Cuzick et al, 2010), infection (Vuttanon et al, 2017), skin damage and pulmonary fibrosis (Horton & Bellon, 2015) can lessen QOL. Severe side effects are experienced most significantly within 2 to 5 years postdiagnosis (Gao & Dizon, 2013) and have been found to cause poorer states of physical and mental health (Zhang et al, 2015; Zhao et al, 2014).…”

Symptom Management Theory

“…SMT has been the basis for multiple nursing studies focusing on symptom experiences and symptom management in cancer. [18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][33][34][35][36][37][38][39] Findings from these studies have expanded the body of nursing knowledge and advanced the science of symptom research. The review findings support the applicability of SMT concepts to adults with cancer.…”

“…46 In oncology patients, symptoms vary with cancer types 24,26 and cancer stage. 19 Even within a specific cancer diagnosis, the symptom clusters could change over the course of treatment. 22 In addition, one symptom could exacerbate another symptom 46 and an intervention strategy aimed at relief of one symptom may lead to worsening of another symptom or development of a new symptom.…”

“…The study selection process and the exclusion criteria for each stage of screening are shown in the PRISMA flow diagram17 (Figure 1). The screening process yielded 22 articles18–39 that reported findings from 20 studies, with 2 studies represented by 2 articles each on different aspects of the study (Supplemental Digital Content Table 1 available at: http://links.lww.com/ANS/A28).…”

“…The literature review found that between 2000 and 2018, 20 research studies reported use of SMT as a theoretical framework to explore symptom experiences, test intervention strategies, or examine relationships between theoretical dimensions among adults with cancer (Supplemental Digital Content Table 1 available at: http://links.lww.com/ANS/A28). 18–39 This use indicates that the theory's concepts and relationships can be converted to study variables and testable hypotheses. In addition, the review findings indicate use of SMT in studies that primarily employed quantitative designs and correlational statistics to identify relationships between SMT concepts.…”