Recent studies have shown that addressing patients’ emotional, spiritual, and social needs through palliative care interventions has a substantial influence on cancer patients’ quality of life. In fact, the interventions may even improve patients’ overall survival.
However, most patients diagnosed with cancer do not have advance directives addressed and are not aware of the benefits of hospice services. Therefore, researchers at Mayo Clinic in Florida, tested whether a nurse practitioner-driven consultation that used advance directives and quality-of-life assessment tools improved cancer patients’ quality of life.
The study, published in the Journal of Palliative Medicine, suggests that a consultative visit between an oncology nurse practitioner and a patient with metastatic cancer does improve the patient’s mental and emotional health.
Despite the fact that only 26 patients were enrolled, the study results were strongly positive. The 12 patients who did receive intervention from an oncology advanced registered nurse practitioner had a significant improvement in their emotional health. The 14 patients randomized to the “control” arm, which excluded a discussion about advance directives and how their symptoms could best be managed, lacked similar improvements.
The study’s senior investigator, Gerardo Colon-Otero, MD, an oncologist in the Division of Hematology/Oncology at Mayo Clinic in Florida says, “The findings should be extremely helpful to oncologists in both community and academic medical practices concerned about how to incorporate palliative care, including discussions about advance directives in the outpatient management of their cancer patients.”
The study also demonstrates that, because oncology clinics must be so focused on treating the cancer, there is more that can be done to help improve patients’ quality of life.
“This study suggests that we shouldn’t be afraid of these discussions, and that many of our patients actually welcome having advance directives and hearing about hospice services,” Colon-Otero says. “This relatively simple strategy of having a nurse practitioner trained in palliative care and embedded within the oncology clinic to provide these consultation services is helpful, all the way around.”
Source: Mayo Clinic.
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