Purpose: To identify the professionalism of certified nurses in breast cancer nursing, which is formed by their clinical nursing practice.

Methods: The study participants were certified nurses in breast cancer nursing who had been certified by the Japanese Nursing Association’s certification system. Data were collected by semi-structured interviews and inductive content analysis was conducted.

Result: There were 17 participants. The professionalism of certified nurses in breast cancer nursing was summarized as: recognition of the essence of breast cancer nursing, excellent breast cancer nursing practice, contribution to the cultivation of breast cancer nursing, contribution to organizational development, maintenance of an attitude appropriate for professional nursing, efforts to improve and self-improvement, and recognition of the value of breast cancer nursing.

Discussion: The professionalism of certified nurses in breast cancer nursing is formed, fostered, and renewed through their accumulated experience as breast cancer nursing professionals, based on the professionalism of the nursing profession as a whole. In order for these nurses to form and maintain their professionalism as breast cancer care develops, the support of the work environment and nursing management, coupled with their own efforts, will contribute to their professionalism. In order to deepen awareness of the professionalism of these nurses among health care providers and those who are the target of nursing care, it is important to visualize and communicate the significance and usefulness of these nurses to society.

Purpose: To clarify how wives prepare for their husbands’ loss of voice after they undergo a total laryngectomy.

Methods: A qualitative-descriptive research design was adopted to conduct semi-structured interviews with five wives of men who had undergone a total laryngectomy at least three months prior to the interviews. The study analyzed how these women prepared for the husbands’ loss of voice prior to surgery and classified their responses.

Results: The results indicate that, prior to surgery, these wives first went through the stages of “understanding and recognizing their husbands’ impending loss of voice” and “preparation for surgery.” They then experienced the conflicting emotions of “unperturbed acceptance of their husbands as they were headed for surgery” and “acceptance of themselves despite anxiety” which are deep feelings of trying to accept the reality of the situation. Thus, the study depicted changes in how the wives, as they experienced these two emotions, prepared themselves for their husbands’ loss of voice.

Conclusion: A total of nine categories extracted with respect to how wives prepare themselves suggest the importance of observing the couples’ situations by focusing on their bond as husband and wife and providing support so that they can look ahead.

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to clarify the significance of “eating” for terminal cancer patients.

Research Method: Semi-structured interviews were conducted with terminal cancer patients admitted to the palliative care unit in prefecture A. Patients were analyzed using the Krippendorff content analysis method from Krippendorff.

Result: The subjects were 10 people between 40 and 80 years old. Their scale of performance statuses were PS1 to PS3. All subjects had food intolerance symptoms. Seven core categories were formed to support the significance of “eating”: “Eating is a natural activity for all humans”, “Eating brings happiness”, “Eating deepens family ties”, “I want to eat whatever delicious food I want”, “I want to continue eating to survive”, “I feel distressed that I cannot eat” and “I know that my life is limited and accept that I can no longer eat”.

Discussion: It is thought that terminal-stage cancer patients reinterpret “eating” as a natural activity from the standpoint of people and consumers, and that while they struggle with the meaning of “eating” as “living” and “enjoying” and with their inability to eat, they accept their inability to eat, which allows them to prepare for death.

Conclusion: It was suggested that support for eating according to their significance of “eating” may lead to the improvement of the patient’s spiritual care.

Background: Patients with pancreatic cancer show moderate to severe weight loss in 66-84% of cases. This suggests that, pancreatic cancer patients experience eating-related distress, which is presumed to affect their quality of life (QOL). Therefore, the purpose of this study was to characterize the health-related QOL in patients undergoing pancreatic cancer chemotherapy and to examine its relationship with nutritional indices and eating-related distress.

Methods: A self-administered questionnaire and medical record survey were conducted with 33 pancreatic cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy after obtaining their informed consent. The survey items included basic information, medical-related information, Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy-Hepatobiliary (FACT-Hep), a disease-specific QOL Assessment Scale for Patients with Hepatobiliary and Pancreatic Cancer, and nutritional indices. Analysis was based on the mean value of FACT-Hep, which was classified into high and low groups, and statistical group comparisons were made with respect to the association with other variables.

Results: The mean FACT-Hep was 117.1±23.7, and 72.7-78.9% of subjects had more than mild nutritional disorders. Comparison of the low and high FACT-Hep groups showed no significant differences in nutritional indices. The low FACT-Hep group showed significantly higher rates of feeling “Although I know that I have to eat enough, I cannot do it.” (p=0.033) and “I am burdened by the meals that my family serves me” (p=0.009) in the eating-related distress items.

Conclusions: Our results suggest that symptom management based on FACT-Hep assessment and efforts to alleviate eating-related distress are necessary to improve the quality of life of pancreatic cancer patients.