[The contibution of concept development to nursing knowledge? The example of transitoriness].

To provide nursing practice with evidence, it is important to understand nursing phenomena in detail. Therefore, good descriptions including the identification of characteristics and attributes of nursing phenomena on various levels of abstraction, i. e.

Quality of life for caregivers of people with Alzheimer's disease.

Aim: This paper is a report of a study to describe the meaning of quality of life for caregivers of patients with Alzheimer's disease and to identify factors that affect their quality of life.

Background: The burden for informal caregivers and change in their quality of life can lead to patients being placed in nursing homes. Factors found to worsen caregivers' quality of life include strained finances, poor family functioning, difficult patient behaviour, financial burdens and the amount of time caregivers spend caring for family members with Alzheimer's disease.

Phase I participants' views of quality of life and trial participation burdens.

Purpose: Participants' perception of quality of life (QOL) and respondent burden have significant implications for investigators' ethical responsibilities to their subjects in phase I cancer trials. To address these responsibilities, analysis was conducted on participants' views of their experiences of a phase I trial, including the associated burdens and what constitutes QOL.

Patients And Methods: One hundred potential participants of the endostatin trial were surveyed.

Group dream work: a holistic resource for oncology nurses.

Purpose/objectives: To explore dream work as a possible means for nurses to increase self-understanding and problem solving in personal and professional life.

Design: Hermeneutic phenomenologic, descriptive, and interpretive.

Setting: A comprehensive cancer center in the southern United States.

Teaching patients how to improve communication with their health care providers: a unique workshop experience.

Background: A one-day workshop was held to educate cancer patients about improving communication with their cancer care providers.

Methods: The workshop included three sessions: 1) Getting through the Diagnosis/Prognosis Phase, 2) Exploring Treatment Options, and 3) Asking Difficult Questions (when medicines no longer work).

Results: Qualitative and survey data revealed that many participated in order to share their experiences with others rather than to be taught effective communication skills.

Cancer pain management and the JCAHO's pain standards: an institutional challenge.

Unrelieved pain is a major medical problem. In response to this problem, the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO) launched new standards for pain management in 1999. A review was conducted in five hospitals of 117 charts of 80 inpatients and 37 outpatients with cancer who had pain documented in their medical records to determine whether application of these JCAHO standards was documented.

The experience of Italians caring for family members with Alzheimer's disease.

Purpose: To obtain a more complete understanding of the experience of Italian caregivers of people with Alzheimer's Disease (AD).

Design And Methods: In this phenomenological study of AD Italian caregivers, the participants were 26 family caregivers (6 men and 20 women, of whom 19 were spouses and 7 were children).

Findings: Six themes were identified in this analysis: changes in relationships, changes in lifestyle, difficulties in caring, hopes and fears for the future, family duty, and respectful treatment.

Making use of qualitative research.

Many have discussed the importance of using research in practice. To understand this issue, we examined what authors of qualitative research in oncology said about the uses of their research findings. Analysis ofthe authors' implications sections was conducted with 42 articles published between 1995 and 2001 and indexed in either Medline or CINAHL The two categories from this analysis were implications for future research and communication.