HEALTH SERVICE RESEARCH POSTER PRESENTATION ABSTRACTS
Please note: All posters will be displayed in
Salons 10-12.
THURSDAY, 10:15-11:00 AM
Brazier A, Cooke K.
Integrated cancer care: facilitating patients' active
engagement in care.
School of Nursing, University of British Columbia
brazier@nursing.ubc.ca
PURPOSE: To examine how participation in a program
of integrated cancer care at the Centre for Integrated Healing (the
Centre), a non-profit organization in Vancouver, BC that offers services
to cancer patients and their families, influences the experience of
living with cancer.
METHODS: This qualitative study involved 28
clients, both men and women with a variety of cancer diagnoses, who
began attending the Centre between May and July 2004. Four focus groups
and 6 follow-up interviews were conducted during the fall of 2004. Clients
were asked to comment on their experience of the program at the Centre,
whether they felt that the Centre had an influence on any changes in
lifestyle or treatment decision-making, and on their experience of integrating
conventional and complementary care. Focus groups and interviews were
audio-taped and transcribed verbatim. An interpretive description qualitative
approach was utilized involving open coding and a constant comparison
of data.
RESULTS: Clients described a change in how they
were living with cancer in terms of their degree of involvement in their
cancer care. They engaged in creating a personalized cancer management
plan that included both conventional and complementary therapies, as
well as self-care change. The theme that emerged was a process of active
engagement in cancer care, where forms of active engagement included
"empowered decision-making", "creating self-care change", and "integrating
self-care change". A number of aspects of the integrated care experience
facilitated this active engagement including: healing partnerships with
practitioners; information and opportunities available to clients; emotional
support; and, hope. An inhibiting factor to this active engagement was
difficulty with integrating recommendations from the Centre with those
of oncologists.
CONCLUSIONS: This pilot project demonstrates
that an integrated cancer care program plays a role in how cancer patients
become involved in making treatment decisions, both for conventional
and complementary care, and their engagement in healthy lifestyle behaviors.
Additional research is needed to more clearly understand the motivations
and experience of clients in creating and sustaining self-care changes,
as well as the outcomes of this active engagement in their care. Further,
there is a need to understand how best to assist cancer patients with
more positive integration of complementary and conventional cancer care
decisions.
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