Abstract
The purpose of this study is to clarify how cancer patients’ anxieties shift along with nursing supports, which start being provided when the “Cancer Patient Personal Counseling 2” fees are determined and their diagnoses and therapeutic plans as outpatients are decided. The research objects are cancer patients who started receiving nursing supports when their diagnoses and therapeutic plans were decided. Their STAS-J scores were assessed when the supports started, while they were being provided, and when they ended. The patients’ data, the status and the situation of them and their families, their STAS-J scores and the scores reflecting their “anxiety shifts” with the influencing factors were gained retrospectively from their medical records. Their overall STAS-J scores were tallied first, and the score changes showing their “anxiety shifts” from when their nursing supports started to when they ended were evaluated based on the Wilcoxon signed-rank test and the Fisher’s exact test (with the significance level 5%). Also, the STAS-J score changes were visualized in a line chart for the quality assessment of the influencing factors. Sixty-two patients participated, including 11 men and 51 women with an average age of 55.9 (31–76). Lowering of the anxieties was identified among 85.5% of them, with significant differences in their STAS-J scores between when the nursing supports started and ended (p<0.001). There were no significant differences per attributions of the patients. Four types were identified among the changes, including the lowering-only type identified in 64.5%, which confirmed the assumption that being able to decide on their own treatments and starting taking them could be the lowering factors. During the periods when diagnoses and therapeutic plans were decided, many patients and families showed anxieties. It proved the needs for supporting them especially at the time of their decision-making, for identifying their anxieties, and for arranging early inter-professional supports.
