What Is Self-Care Theory?

Nursing is needed when self-care demands are more significant than the self-care abilities. An intervention is an action of the nurse that is carried out in handling a patient’s health problem based on nursing care plans by the nurse’s diagnosis that was determined beforehand by a comprehensive system of nursing’s standard method.

Information exchange is essential to both the progression of science and patient care, and the influence of the internet in the medical field has been vast. As nurses, what we find out there on the web can lead us to be being better health care professionals, better informed, and better connected and supported by our peers.

This paper will have three parts; the first part will explore the effects of the nursing intervention on subjective distress, side effects and quality of life of breast cancer patients, the second part will examine how to utilize the internet and what challenges the researcher faced, and last using the computers office tools a pie chart of specific population estimates.

Effects of a Nursing Intervention

Relevance, timing and ongoing patient education are keys to the success of a nursing intervention aimed at reducing side effects, stress, and enhancing the quality of life of women with breast cancer. Nursing care interventions can minimize a women’s subjective distress during treatment and can be seen as a useful complement to the patient’s social network.

Present findings of the study indicated that future interventions are needed to meet a woman’s psychosocial needs to improve quality of life. Further research is required where the timing of interventions and other outcome measures such as disease-specific outcomes regarding common symptom related to breast cancer.

Since nursing interventions reduce stress during treatment, research would benefit from the testing of the interventions at different times during the illness continuum. Early interventions at diagnosis versus interventions later on during adjuvant therapy versus no intervention to find the most relevant time for successful interventions (Wengestrom, Haggmark, Strander, & Forsberg, 1999).

Development, Implementation and Theoretical Framework

The purpose of the randomized study was to investigate if using Orem’s self-care theory as a framework would affect subjective distress, side effects, and quality of life as perceived by breast cancer patients receiving curative radiation therapy. The World Health Organization Quality of Life Group (WHOQOL), defines the quality of life “as an individual’s perceptions of their position in life int eh context of the culture and value system in which they live and in relation to their goals, expectations, standards, and concern” (Wengestrom, Haggmark, Strander, ; Forsberg, 1999).

Development and Implementation

The intervention during this study consisted of five 30-minute sessions once a week during the treatment period, and two follow up meetings after completion of treatment. The experimental group and controlled group both included 67 women. Measurements were made before the commencement of radiation therapy, three weeks into treatment, on completion of treatment at week five and two weeks and three months after completing treatment. A self-reporting questionnaire consisting of 15 items exploring the severity of response to radiation therapy was used.

Two subscales fell within the two most common reactions to stressful events, intrusion experiences, how impressions related to radiation therapy treatment reappear and avoidance of feelings and ideas, denial and the consequence of treatment. Scores were obtained by using never-0, seldom-1, sometimes-3, and often-5. Higher scores indicated a higher level of avoidance or intrusion.

A shortened form of the Cancer Rehabilitation Evaluation System (CARES-sf) containing 59 items of the problems that cancer patients cope and assess behavior that is affected by cancer and its treatment. Rating range from 0 does not apply, and five applies very much. Clinical information such as age, family situation, marital status, education, work situation and radiation dose was also collected 55% of the women in the study experienced intrusive symptoms and 40% experiences at least one avoidance symptoms.

The experimental group there was a tendency to use avoidant behavior to a greater extent than in the controlled group. Major stress events tend to be followed by involuntary repetitions in thought, emotions, and actions. There is a need for assessment and interventions to have psychological adjustments to breast cancer and treatment (Wengestrom, Haggmark, Strander, ; Forsberg, 1999).

Theoretical Framework

Knowledge and education in self-practices are necessary. According to Orem, self-care is when individuals can perform on their behalf to maintain life, sustain health and promote well-being. A person must have the ability and skill to initiate and sustain self-care efforts. During external radiation therapy, significant bodily changes occur, such as skin reactions and nausea, this will alter the patient’s self-care needs and practices, nursing intervention includes the provision of a supportive environment, psychological, and physical comforting, instructions, and guiding for the patient, this support can reduce emotional distress and enhance coping and quality of life (Wengestrom, Haggmark, Strander, & Forsberg, 1999).

To do research effectively, it must proceed in an orderly fashion. The first step to identify the problem, where knowledge is needed to advance the practice of nursing. A research question that the researcher expects to be answered that specifies the variable and the population being studied. In this study, there is the independent variable or cause (radiation therapy) that is linked to the dependent variable or effect (quality of life). Data is collected, organized, analyzed, interpreter, and communicated (Nieswiadomy, 2012).

In my opinion, the variables used in this study were efficient, and no other variables were needed that would impact the findings. There was no mention of monitoring the safety of the participants, which was obtained from the Radiation Therapy Department at Radiumhemmet, Karolinska Hospital in Sweden comparing patients receiving radiation therapy to those standard receiving care.

When variables showed a normal distribution than parametric methods were used, to evaluate the differences between the experimental and controlled options the repeated measure analysis of variance (ANOVA) was calculated, and the t-test was used on the baseline data to determine whether differences existed between experimental and controlled groups (Wengestrom, Haggmark, Strander, & Forsberg, 1999).

The study demonstrated that nursing care interventions could minimize a patient’s distress and can be seen as a useful complement to the patient’s social network as well as assisting in meeting the patient’s psychosocial needs to improve her quality of life. The study did suggest that further research where the timing of interventions and other outcome measures such as disease-specific outcomes be included in the study.