Lack of specialist training for nurses is failing adolescent cance...( eads to alienation from healthy peers. ...),Health

eads to alienation from healthy peers. Patients often feel isolated in general paediatric and adult wards where there is little or no contact with peers. However, sharing wards with patients of the same age group helps to lessen the risk of social withdrawal and depression. Patients prefer to be with their own age groups and with other young cancer patients and can find camaraderie, acceptance and a sense of normality within a TYA Unit."

She said that studies of young people who had been treated in an adult environment showed the negative impact it could have on them. "Adolescents experience situations of 'infringement' in adult care, feelings of 'being a bother' and 'not being taken seriously'.

"Adolescents with cancer frequently highlight the need for time to sit and talk to staff. Studies show that within an adult environment staff spend little time with the adolescent patient. It is unclear whether this is due to inadequate staffing levels or simply an avoidance strategy. However, there is evidence to suggest that staff within adult environments have insufficient understanding on strategies of care that meet the psychosocial needs of the adolescent patient, including failure to recognise adolescent coping mechanisms.

"It is my belief that every teenager and young adult should, where possible, be treated in a specialist unit staffed by professionals with expertise and experience. Furthermore, all young people diagnosed with cancer should have access to the complex psychosocial support mechanisms that is their absolute right to receive."

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Contact: Emma Mason
wordmason@mac.com
44-077-112-96986
Teenage Cancer Trust
29-Mar-2006

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