Follow-up phone calls by nurses benefit cance...( CHAPEL HILL - A program of te...),Health

CHAPEL HILL - A program of telephone counseling and education by nurses helps cancer patients cope with the effects of their disease, according to studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

"The advent of managed care has decreased the amount of time health care providers spend with patients. A premium is placed on seeing more patients in less time," says Dr. Merle Mishel, UNC-CH Kenan Distinguished Professor of Nursing and member of the UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center. "Being unable to get questions answered is a common complaint of cancer patients who are discharged early with treatment side effects that compromise independent functioning."

With funding from the National Cancer Institute and the National Institute of Nursing Research, Mishel is conducting three psycho-educational intervention studies with cancer patients.

"In all three studies, nurses use telephone counseling and supplementary materials to teach patients and/or their family members how to manage uncertainty generated by their cancer diagnosis and treatment," Mishel says. "The intervention also teaches strategies to enhance self-care and self-help behaviors."

One study involves African-American and White men with localized prostate cancer and their family members. The second evaluates a related form of intervention in older White, Mexican-American and African-American Women with Breast cancer. The third tests the intervention in younger African-American women with breast cancer.

In the telephone-based nursing intervention, patients are called once a week over eight weeks. The nurses are matched to participants by race and gender. The same nurse delivers the calls to a patient throughout the intervention. Calls average about 15-20 minutes. Mishel points out that the program is individualized to the patient. "It's tailored to the person's concerns of that day, that week, that phone call. And much of wh
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Contact: Lynn Wooten
Lwooten@unch.unc.edu
919-966-6046
University of North Carolina School of Medicine
21-Sep-1999