Ruth McCorkle

Development of a symptom distress scale.

Symptom distress was defined as the degree of discomfort reported by the patient in relation to his/her perception of the symptoms being experienced. The ten symptoms included in the symptom distress scale were nausea, mood, appetite, insomnia, pain, mobility, fatigue, bowel pattern, concentration and appearance. The scale was tested on fifty-three patients with advanced medical conditions. Total symptom distress scores for these patients ranged from ten to forty-one; the mean was twenty. The reliability coefficient alpha was .82143 and the standardized alpha was .82557. More testing of the scale is needed, especially with different types of chronic diseases and visible signs of illness.

Self-Management: Enabling and Empowering Patients Living With Cancer as a Chronic Illness

With recent improvements in the early detection, diagnosis, and treatment of cancer, people with cancer are living longer, and their cancer may be managed as a chronic illness. Cancer as a chronic illness places new demands on patients and families to manage their own care, and it challenges old paradigms that oncologys work is done after treatment. As a chronic illness, however, cancer care occurs on a continuum that stretches from prevention to the end of life, with early detection, diagnosis, treatment, and survivorship in between. In this article, self‐management interventions that enable patients and families to participate in managing their care along this continuum are reviewed. Randomized controlled trials of self‐management interventions with cancer patients and families in the treatment, survivorship, and end‐of‐life phases of the cancer care continuum are reviewed, and the Chronic Care Model is presented as a model of care that oncology practices can use to enable and empower patients and families to engage in self‐management. It is concluded that the need for a common language with which to speak about self‐management and a common set of self‐management actions for cancer care notwithstanding, oncology practices can now build strong relationships with their patients and formulate mutually agreed upon care plans that enable and empower patients to care for themselves in the way they prefer. CA Cancer J Clin 2011.

Symptom distress, current concerns and mood disturbance after diagnosis of life-threatening disease

This study describes the level of symptom distress, current concerns and mood disturbance in persons with a diagnosis of one of two life-threatening diseases at two occasions. The sample included 56 lung cancer patients and 65 heart attack patients who completed interviews at 1 and 2 months post diagnosis. Data were obtained using a modified version of the McCorkle and Young Symptom Distress Scale, the Weisman and Worden Inventory of Current Concerns and the Profile of Mood States. One conclusion that can be drawn from the study is that the plight of newly diagnosed lung cancer patients appears to be bleaker than that of heart attack patients. Cancer patients experienced more symptom distress of all kinds than heart attack patients. They also reported more health and existential concerns and they suffered more mood disturbances, on the average, than heart attack patients did. The most striking finding of the mean differences analysis was that, although symptom distress remained the same between occasions for both groups, both kinds of patients reported fewer concerns and better mood at the second interview. Although the plight of neither type of patient improved, patients reported being in better spirits and less worried at the second measurement occasion. This reduction in concerns and mood disturbance between interviews suggests that patients assimilate that their situation is not as immediately life-threatening as they had feared.

ADVANCING GERIATRIC NURSING PRACTICE; A Specialized Home Care Intervention Improves Survival Among Older Post-Surgical Cancer Patients

CONTEXT: Changes in the healthcare system have resulted in shortened hospital stays, moving the focus of care from the hospital to the home. Patients are discharged post‐operatively with ongoing needs, and whether they receive nursing care post‐hospitalization can influence their recovery and survival. Little information is available about the factors that influence outcomes, including the survival of older cancer patients after cancer surgery.

A randomized clinical trial of home nursing care for lung cancer patients

A randomized clinical trial was conducted to assess the effects of home nursing care for patients with progressive lung cancer. One hundred sixty‐six patients were assigned to either an oncology home care group (OHC) that received care from oncology home care nurses, a standard home care group (SHC) that received care from regular home care nurses, or an office care group (OC) that received whatever care they needed except for home care. Patients were entered into the study 2 months after diagnosis and followed for 6 months. Patients were interviewed at 6‐week intervals across five occasions. At the end of the study, there were no differences in pain, mood disturbance, and concerns among the three groups. There were significant differences in symptom distress, enforced social dependency, and health perceptions. The two home nursing care groups had less distress and greater independence 6 weeks longer than the office care group. In addition, the two home nursing care groups steadily reported worse health perceptions over time. Thus, it was remarkable that the office care group, which indicated more symptom distress and social dependency with time, also indicated perceptions of improved health with time. These results suggest that home nursing care assists patients with forestalling distress from symptoms and maintaining their independence longer in comparison to no home nursing care. Home care may also include assisting patients in acknowledging the reality of their situation.

Processes of Self‐Management in Chronic Illness

PURPOSE Self-management is a dynamic process in which individuals actively manage a chronic illness. Self-management models are limited in their specification of the processes of self-management. The purpose of this article is to delineate processes of self-management in order to help direct interventions and improve health outcomes for individuals with a chronic illness. DESIGN Qualitative metasynthesis techniques were used to analyze 101 studies published between January 2000 and April 2011 that described processes of self-management in chronic illness. METHODS Self-management processes were extracted from each article and were coded. Similar codes were clustered into categories. The analysis continued until a final categorization was reached. FINDINGS Three categories of self-management processes were identified: focusing on illness needs; activating resources; and living with a chronic illness. Tasks and skills were delineated for each category. CONCLUSIONS This metasynthesis expands on current descriptions of self-management processes by specifying a more complete spectrum of self-management processes. CLINICAL RELEVANCE Healthcare providers can best facilitate self-management by coordinating self-management activities, by recognizing that different self-management processes vary in importance to patients over time, and by having ongoing communication with patients and providers to create appropriate self-management plans.

Enhancing Patient-Provider Communication With the Electronic Self-Report Assessment for Cancer: A Randomized Trial

PURPOSE Although patient-reported cancer symptoms and quality-of-life issues (SQLIs) have been promoted as essential to a comprehensive assessment, efficient and efficacious methods have not been widely tested in clinical settings. The purpose of this trial was to determine the effect of the Electronic Self-Report Assessment-Cancer (ESRA-C) on the likelihood of SQLIs discussed between clinicians and patients with cancer in ambulatory clinic visits. Secondary objectives included comparison of visit duration between groups and usefulness of the ESRA-C as reported by clinicians. PATIENTS AND METHODS This randomized controlled trial was conducted in 660 patients with various cancer diagnoses and stages at two institutions of a comprehensive cancer center. Patient-reported SQLIs were automatically displayed on a graphical summary and provided to the clinical team before an on-treatment visit (n = 327); in the control group, no summary was provided (n = 333). SQLIs were scored for level of severity or distress. One on-treatment clinic visit was audio recorded for each participant and then scored for discussion of each SQLI. We hypothesized that problematic SQLIs would be discussed more often when the intervention was delivered to the clinicians. RESULTS The likelihood of SQLIs being discussed differed by randomized group and depended on whether an SQLI was first reported as problematic (P = .032). Clinic visits were similar with regard to duration between groups, and clinicians reported the summary as useful. CONCLUSION The ESRA-C is the first electronic self-report application to increase discussion of SQLIs in a US randomized clinical trial.

Effect of a Cognitive Behavioral Intervention on Reducing Symptom Severity During Chemotherapy

PURPOSE To describe a randomized trial of a cognitive behavioral intervention on reducing symptom severity among patients diagnosed with solid tumors and undergoing a first course of chemotherapy and to determine whether the intervention had an additive or interactive effect on symptom severity in the presence of supportive care medications. PATIENTS AND METHODS Patients (N = 237) were accrued from comprehensive and community cancer centers, interviewed, and randomly assigned to either the experimental intervention (n = 118) or conventional care (n = 119). A symptom severity index, based on summed severity scores across 15 symptoms, was the primary outcome. Each patients site of cancer, stage at diagnosis, chemotherapy protocols, and use of supportive medications were learned from medical records. RESULTS Groups were equivalent at baseline, and attrition by characteristics by group was not different. The proportion of patients not receiving chemotherapy at 10 and 20 weeks did not differ by group. At the 10- and 20-week observations, there was a significant interaction between the experimental group and baseline symptom severity. Patients in the experimental group who entered the trial with higher symptom severity reported significantly lower severity at 10 and 20 weeks. Controlling for chemotherapy treatment status at follow-up and supportive care medications did not alter the effect of the experimental intervention. CONCLUSION Compared with conventional care alone, the experimental intervention was effective among patients who entered the trial with higher levels of symptom severity. Age, sex, site or stage of cancer, and supportive medications did not modify the effect of this cognitive behavioral intervention on symptom severity.

Social factors, treatment, and survival in early-stage non-small cell lung cancer.

OBJECTIVES This study assessed the importance of socioeconomic status, race, and likelihood of receiving surgery in explaining mortality among patients with stage-I non-small cell lung cancer. METHODS Analyses focused on Black and White individuals 75 years of age and younger (n = 5189) diagnosed between 1980 and 1982 with stage-I non-small cell lung cancer in Detroit, San Francisco, and Seattle. The main outcome measure was months of survival after diagnosis. RESULTS Patients in the highest income decile were 45% more likely to receive surgical treatment and 102% more likely to attain 5-year survival than those in the lowest decile. Whites were 20% more likely to undergo surgery than Blacks and 31% more likely to survive 5 years. Multivariate procedures controlling for age and sex confirmed these observations. CONCLUSIONS Socioeconomic status and race appear to independently influence likelihood of survival. Failure to receive surgery explains much excess mortality.

Gender bias in the measurement properties of the center for epidemiologic studies depression scale (CES-D)

Confirmatory factor-analytic models are used to examine gender biases of individual items of the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression (CES-D) Scale. In samples containing 708 cancer patients and 504 caregivers of the chronically ill elderly, two CES-D items are identified as producing biased responses in comparisons of male and female respondents. Three additional CES-D items are excluded on the basis of other psychometric problems, yielding a subset of 15 CES-D items that capture almost all the information of the original 20-item CES-D scale but are free of any gender bias. Gender differences in mean levels of depressive symptomatology are significantly reduced, but not eliminated, when the 15-item scale is used.