Harumi ARAI
Shubun University, Japan
Biography
Although diagnosis techniques and treatment methods of cancer have been developed and nursing approaches fully examined from various viewpoints, few of these accomplishments are applicable to physical assessment of schizophrenic patients with stomach cancer. In this study, which was conducted after being approved by the IRB of Iwaki Meisei University, basic information on the content of physical assessment of schizophrenic patients with stomach cancer by nurses at psychiatric hospitals was gathered and organized.
Results
128 nurses (respondence rate 85.3%) including 61 males and 67 females 70% of who were 40 years or older responded the questionnaire. 77 nurses had experience working at general hospitals, and 51 nurses had been working only at psychiatric hospitals. Physical assessment by nurses included “poor appetite” (82), “weight loss” (80), “bloody stool” (74), “general fatigue” (68), and “edema” (16) (multiple answers included). The knowledge and techniques that the nurses wanted to acquire included “monitor management” (86), “NGT management” (71), “abdominal symptoms” (46), and “cancer pain” (34) (multiple answers included).
Discussion
The longer nurses work at psychiatric hospitals, the more they seem to lose interest in physical assessment of symptoms caused by cancer. The importance of developing an education program focusing on how to assess cancer pains in patients for whom narcotic drugs are not used was recognized and suggested.
Abstract
Abstract : Physical Assessment of Schizophrenic Patients with Stomach Cancer