Effective communication between patients and oncologists is an area of active and growing research interest. Evidence-based recommendations can be drawn from studies examining (1) the patient-physician relationship; (2) how physicians handle medical information; (3) how physicians deal with patient emotions; (4) system-level communication interventions; (5) physician self-management, and (6) ed...

CONTEXT Although abortion became legal in India in 1971, many women are unaware of the law. Behavior change communication interventions may be an effective way to promote awareness of the law and change knowledge of and perceptions about abortion, particularly in settings in which abortion is stigmatized. METHODS To evaluate the effectiveness of a behavior change communication intervention to...

Patients with cancer receiving therapy may face a variety of complicated and stressful symptoms. Oncology nurses can advocate for patients by performing their roles as educators and comanagers of cancer-related side effects. In addition, symptom-focused education provided by oncology nurses can enable patients to administer self-care more effectively.

Through a statewide telephone survey of 819 beneficiaries (or their proxies), we collected data regarding client and aide demographics, as well as clients' satisfaction, outcomes, perspectives on staff performance, and complaints associated with home-based personal care services provided under the Virginia Medicaid Elderly and Disabled (E&D) waiver. Most respondents indicated that services impr...

AIM The aim of this study was to determine the patient problems that nurses encounter in different clinical settings and the extent to which they report being able to influence those patient problems. DESIGN Exploratory online survey research. METHOD Data were collected through an online questionnaire. We prepared a 2 × 2 matrix to compare the rate of occurrence against the average level of...

Over the last two decades, disability (needing help with personal care or other routine needs) has fallen among the elderly. But disability has risen for younger Americans, especially those ages 30–49. The largest increase occurred for those ages 30–39, whose rate of disability rose by more than 50 percent between 1984 and 1996. Disability is rising for whites and nonwhites, for people inside a...

A paucity of research is available on patients' bowel symptom experiences and self-care strategies following sphincter-saving surgery for rectal cancer. Most research undertaken to date on patients' bowel symptoms following surgery for rectal cancer has been largely atheoretical. The purpose of this paper is to describe the process of choosing a theoretical framework to guide a study of patient...

One hundred and ten inpatients (80 males and 30 females) of Agra Mental Hospital with continuous stay of more than two years formed the study population. Majority of them were schizophrenics. Demographic data of these patients, their current social contacts inside and outside hospital, attitude of hospital staff and family members toward them, self care, sexual problems, future plans, social ac...

The aim of this confidential postal questionnaire study was to determine why patients change their general practitioner. Among 1423 patients who changed their general practitioner without changing their address the reason most commonly given for leaving a general practitioner was distance (41%)--three quarters of these patients mentioned only distance. Just over one third of respondents (35%) m...