Abstract
As cancer treatments transit from inpatient to outpatient, there is more demand for patients to learn to adjust to their own physical and mental condition which changes in accordance with the treatment and progress of the disease.
The purpose of this research is to clarify and conceptualize the characteristics of self-care as a pre-stage to create index to assess self-care ability of cancer patients.
This research is guided by Rodgers' approach. In order to focus on self-care of cancer patients based on nursing in practice up to now, qualitative analysis is done by searching and collecting original articles from Igaku Chuo Zasshi and PubMed. Among 76 articles which have met the requirements, there were no articles which clearly defined self-care of cancer patients. From the analysis, 4 antecedents, 4 attributes, 3 consequences and 2 related concepts are extracted from the concept of self-care in cancer patients. The self-care of cancer patient can be defined as a decision making to maintain their own life by searching and collecting information on cancer. And it is composed of coping with adverse effects of cancer therapy and change of their condition, and carrying out health behaviour to prevent from advancement of cancer.
