Abstract

The purpose of this study is to clarified the psychological state of postoperative gastric cancer patients as the first step to get the suggestion of the nursing intervention for the patients.

The participants were 14 postoperative gastric cancer patients admitted in the hospital and discharged from the hospital.

The data were collected through interviews and participant observation, and analyzed by inductive coding.

Results;

The emotion of the patients admitted in the hospital and discharged from the hospital was categorized as four themes of “Anxiety for recurrence”, “Worry for one's diet”, “Anxiety for one's social life”, and “Relief”.

The coping of the patients admitted in the hospital was categorized as seven themes of “Seeking information”, “Cope with the problem”, “Change one's feeling”, “Optimistic prospects”, “Expression of one's feeling”, “Avoidance”, and “Leave it to others”.

The coping of the patients discharged from the hospital was categorized as four themes except for “Seeking information”, “Expression of one's feeling”, and “Leave it to others”.

It was suggested that nurses should support that patients are made it can cope with one's condition actively to make patients have one's condition caught affirmatively.

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to identify the factors affecting taste threshold for sweetness, saltiness, sourness and bitterness associated with cancer chemotherapy. Forty-five subjects hospitalized for chemotherapy were studied using drops of reagents for taste studies. The taste evaluation was performed three times, before, during and after chemotherapy. Patient background, intraoral conditions and chemotherapy drugs were recorded through observation and medical records. Multiple regression analysis was performed using taste threshold as a dependent variable and eleven factors including intraoral state and chemotherapy drugs as independent variables.

1. Taste threshold for saltines was greatly affected by cancer chemotherapy. The average thresholds of taste for saltiness were 2.6, 2.4 and 3.0 before, during and after treatment respectively. The patients become significantly less sensitive to saltiness after treatment than before or during treatment.

2. Multiple regression analysis showed correlation between decrease in taste sensitiveness and age and antibiotics used. The older the patients, the higher the threshold. And patients using antitumor antibiotics were significantly less sensitive to saltiness than those without antibiotics.

The above results showed that the meals served to the patients after chemotherapy should be temporarily more salty than usual in order to prevent decrease in the amount of food eaten. Since elderly patients and patients on antitumor antibiotics are less sensitive to saltiness, the early intervention is indispensable through careful observation and assessment.

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to clarify how nurses provide spiritual care for the patients in the terminal stage of cancer. The subjects were the nurses in the hospice/palliative care unit. The design of this study is descriptive using a qualitative research method. Nine nurses participated in this study, in which they described the care of eighteen patients. The types of spiritual pain experienced by the patients as reported by the nurses were grouped into six themes. The nurses reported that they provided the following types of care on response to the spiritual pains listed above : a) recognizing the spiritual pain felt by the patient, b) relieving the physical pain, c) keeping the company, d) encouraging the patient to look inward for strength, e) help strengthen the psychological ties between the patient and his/her family, f) using self as a tool to help the patient attain the inner peace, g) taking a team approach, h) respecting and honoring the patient's beliefs in the super natural existence, and i) encouraging hope for the life beyond death.