A brief intervention to minimize psychosexual morbidity in dyads coping with breast cancer.

Purpose/objectives: To develop and evaluate the feasibility of a brief intervention to attenuate the incidence of psychosexual morbidity within the dyad secondary to the diagnosis and treatment of breast cancer.

Design: Quasiexperimental, including intervention and treatment-as-usual comparison groups.

Setting: Breast clinic of a comprehensive cancer center in the Midwest United States.

A concept analysis: assuming responsibility for self-care among adolescents with type 1 diabetes.

Purpose: This concept analysis clarifies "assuming responsibility for self-care" by adolescents with type 1 diabetes.

Methods: Walker and Avant's (2005) methodology guided the analysis.

Results: Assuming responsibility for self-care was defined as a process specific to diabetes within the context of development.

Uncertainty in adolescents and young adults with cancer.

Purpose/objectives: To describe uncertainty in three groups of adolescents and young adults with cancer at specific times in their cancer experience: newly diagnosed, diagnosed one to four years, and diagnosed five or more years.

Design: Descriptive, cross-sectional, comparative.

Setting: Six pediatric oncology centers in North America.

Coping in adolescents with cancer: a review of the literature.

The dual challenge of normal adolescent development combined with a diagnosis places high demands on the coping of adolescents with cancer (AWC). A review was conducted to synthesize and critique studies of coping in AWC. Findings from this review indicated inconsistent results for developmental and gender differences as well as associations of coping with distress.

Social support and adolescent cancer survivors: A review of the literature.

With survival rates increasing dramatically in pediatric cancer, concern has increasingly focused on the psychosocial aspects of the cancer experience. Clearly, the experience of a cancer diagnosis and treatment of cancer places high demands on the coping of adolescents. Research has shown social support to be effective in decreasing stress and enhancing coping in adolescents facing such demands.

Meeting the challenges of social work research in long term care.

As the number of long-term care (LTC) residents increases, issues related to quality of care and quality of life will continue to be of concern. Research in this area is clearly needed, yet it presents a variety of challenges related to the nature of the institutional setting and the compromised functional status of residents. The social work calling to give voice to those who are least heard and most needy demands that we rise to these challenges.