The biographical disruption that occurs in adolescents and young adults following a cancer diagnosis can affect various important psychosocial domains including relationships with family and friends, sexual development, vocational and educational trajectories, and physical and emotional wellbeing. While there is evidence of the physical impact of cancer during this period, less is known about the impact on emotional wellbeing and especially on the barriers for young people accessing help and support. We aimed to obtain a more in-depth understanding of young people's experiences of their diagnosis, treatment, psychological impact, and range of resources they could or wanted to access for their mental health.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJ Adolesc Young Adult Oncol
October 2023
Youth support coordinators (YSCs) provide youth-focused psychosocial support to teenagers and young adults (TYA) with cancer, within multidisciplinary teams (MDTs) in National Health Service (NHS) specialist cancer environments. This action research project aimed to provide insight into the work of YSCs with TYA with cancer, within MDTs in clinical settings, and to develop a knowledge and skill framework for YSCs. An action research approach was taken involving two focus groups, with Health Care Professionals ( = 7) and TYA with cancer ( = 7), and a questionnaire with YSCs ( = 23).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIt is well recognised that adolescents and young adults (AYA) with cancer have inequitable access to oncology services that provide expert cancer care and consider their unique needs. Subsequently, survival gains in this patient population have improved only modestly compared with older adults and children with cancer. In 2015, the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) and the European Society for Paediatric Oncology (SIOPE) established the joint Cancer in AYA Working Group in order to increase awareness among adult and paediatric oncology communities, enhance knowledge on specific issues in AYA and ultimately improve the standard of care for AYA with cancer across Europe.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Many health professionals working with teenage and young adult cancer patients (TYA-HPs) do not provide advice on physical activity, dietary intake, smoking cessation, and alcohol consumption as part of routine cancer care.
Objective: The aim of this study was to understand TYA-HPs' perspectives on the provision of health behavior advice and preferences on an intervention to help develop their health promotion skills.
Methods: In-depth, semistructured interviews were conducted with 26 TYA-HPs (12 nurses, 8 clinicians, and 6 allied health professionals) whose average time working with teenage and young adult (TYA) cancer patients was 8 years.
Background: The end of active treatment is a period of high stress for young people with cancer, but limited literature exists about their information and support needs during this phase. This study aimed to understand the needs of young people with cancer, how these needs are currently being met, and how best to provide information and support at the end of active treatment.
Methods: This was a multi-stage, mixed methods study exploring the end of treatment experience from the perspectives of young people, and the healthcare professionals caring for them.
Objectives: Identifying the preferred place of death for children/young people with cancer and determining whether this is achieved is pertinent to inform palliative care service provision. The aims of this retrospective case series review were to determine where children/young people with cancer want to die and whether their preferred place of death was achieved.
Methods: Clinical/demographic details, including preferred and actual places of death, were recorded for 121 patients who died between 2012 and 2016 at a tertiary haematology-oncology centre.
Background: The end of active cancer treatment is described as a stressful period for adolescents and young adults (AYAs). However, research evidence describing the experience of AYAs as they transition from active treatment into follow-up care is scarce.
Objective: We aimed to understand AYAs' experiences within the first 12 months of ending active treatment.
Advanced Practice is recognized by the Royal College of Nursing as a distinctive level of practice encompassing direct care provision, education, research, and management. Advanced Nurse Practitioners (ANP) are educated to MSc level and assessed as competent in their field. A teenage and young adult advanced nurse practitioner (TYA ANP) was introduced in 2015, one of few within the United Kingdom.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIntroduction: The end of active treatment is a stressful period for adolescents and young adults (AYA), but little is known about AYA experiences at this time point. The aim was to describe the issues young people experienced and identify interventions to support AYA at the end of treatment.
Methods: We conducted a rapid review of published primary research to identify what is currently known about AYA experiences of the end of treatment, the issues which arise and existing interventions to support AYA at this time.
Pediatr Blood Cancer
December 2018
There are many components affecting the experience of sexuality for adolescents and young adults living with and beyond cancer. For patients, the interruption to normal socialization creates gaps in information and experience that potentially hinder development. In clinical practice, conversations relating to sexual consequences of illness or treatment are rare, as are age-appropriate assessment and intervention.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPurpose: Discovering sexuality and romantic relationships are important development milestones in adolescence and young adulthood. A cancer diagnosis imposes obstacles for young people such as changes in their sexual function due to the disease and/or side effects of treatment, body image concerns, and interpersonal relationship difficulties. This can cause psychological distress and can impact on quality of life.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: For adolescents and young adults living in high-income countries cancer remains the most common disease-related death. Increasing survival rates and projected longevity are positive outcomes, although long-term consequences of cancer and/or its treatment will likely increase the global burden of cancer. In low and middle-income countries the impact and needs of young adults with cancer are largely unknown and require further attention.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPopulation-level estimates of species' distributions can reveal fundamental ecological processes and facilitate conservation. However, these may be difficult to obtain for mobile species, especially colonial central-place foragers (CCPFs; e.g.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFNursing Adolescents and Young Adults (AYA) with cancer is a relatively new specialty, with much work having been undertaken across Europe. As this evolving specialty develops, nurses are required to develop networks, learn from each other and help to shape services across countries. Describing the cancer journey, this paper looks at the literature and, merging it with over 20years of experience, describes 'what is different' about looking after this group of young people.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe at-sea distribution of seabirds primarily depends on the distance from their breeding colony, and the abundance, distribution and predictability of their prey, which are subject to strong spatial and temporal variation. Many seabirds have developed flexible foraging strategies to deal with this variation, such as increasing their foraging effort or switching to more predictable, less energy dense, prey, in poor conditions. These responses may vary both within and between individuals, and understanding this variability is vital to predict the population-level impacts of spatially explicit environmental disturbances, such as offshore windfarms.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: The focus of work submitted to an international conference can reflect the changing landscape of a specialty and prove important for identifying trends, uncovering gaps, and providing new directions for nurse-led research and clinical practice. We present an analysis of trends in presentations in the nursing program at the SIOP congress from 2003 to 2012 based on all accepted abstracts.
Procedure: A total of 462 abstracts were analyzed.
In the wake of the Francis report, the need for NHS trusts and hospitals to adopt a culture of learning, safety and transparency has been highlighted. This article considers different aspects of culture in health care, and hones in on the link between culture and safety for patients in putting the patient first, embedding the 6Cs and considering the options to measure and influence organisational culture. The article reflects more deeply on how leadership across all levels can influence and inspire change in organisational culture, ensuring that the patient remains the focus of any changes in care delivery.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSeabird tracking has become an ever more popular tool to aid environmental procedures such as the designation of marine protected areas and environmental impact assessments. However, samples used are usually small and little consideration is given to experimental design and sampling protocol. European shags were tracked using GPS technology over three breeding seasons and the following foraging trip characteristics: trip duration, trip distance, maximum distance travelled from the colony, size of area used and direction travelled from colony were determined for each foraging trip.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFColonial breeding is widespread among animals. Some, such as eusocial insects, may use agonistic behavior to partition available foraging habitat into mutually exclusive territories; others, such as breeding seabirds, do not. We found that northern gannets, satellite-tracked from 12 neighboring colonies, nonetheless forage in largely mutually exclusive areas and that these colony-specific home ranges are determined by density-dependent competition.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFEur J Oncol Nurs
September 2009
Brain tumours are one of the most common forms of childhood cancer, affecting approximately 350 children in the UK each year (CancerBackup, 2005). The complex and long treatment for such tumours is often delivered in more than one place of care, as a result children and their families meet a large number of healthcare professionals from a variety of disciplines. The study described in this paper was undertaken to explore the experiences of children/young people (C/YP) with a brain tumour (and their families) being treated at a NHS Trust.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFFor research to be successfully integrated and applied to practice, ownership and identification must come from those who are most likely to implement research into practice. This was one of the reasons for undertaking a Delphi survey to identify and rank the research priorities for clinical nursing research in a paediatric haematology, oncology, immunology and infectious diseases unit. The 'Nurses' Research Group' initiated the survey as a first step towards developing a strategy for evidence-based nursing.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFFollowing a Delphi survey undertaken with nurses on a specialist children's unit to identify priorities for nursing research, this paper outlines the results of a survey to ascertain the views of doctors and parents regarding the results of the Delphi. This approach was in keeping with national guidance on multi-professional working in paediatric oncology and the importance of service-user involvement in planning and evaluating care. Convenience samples of doctors (n=16) and parents (n=10) were asked to rank the priorities previously identified by nurses.
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