Jessica Goldberg, MSN, adult gerontology nurse practitioner, fellow in palliative medicine, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, discusses the results of a study where a cancer self-management intervention was created for patients with breast cancer.
Goldberg says this multiyear study started out with needs assessment interviews with cancer patients who had breast and ovarian cancer to gather what their self-management needs were. Goldberg and her colleagues created modules based on the feedback from the interviews and other research.
Once the modules were created, a focus group of 6 patients was selected to give feedback before using the modules in a series of other studies, Goldberg says.
Goldberg says the results showed that the self-management needs of the patient differed depending on their stage. The results showed that stage IV patients used the the care options module the most while the stage I, II, and III patients most frequently used the “managing transition” module.
Goldberg says this shows that patients’ needs differ depending on where they are in their trajectory of cancer.
