This study was designed to test the correlation between spiritual well-being and quality of life and to identify this variable on quality of life. The subjects were 70 cancer patients of select hospitals in Seoul. Ellison(1983)'s spiritual well-being scale, Padilla's quality of life scale were used after some modification. The results & conclusions are as follows : 1. The score on the spiritual well-being scale ranged from 47 to 120 with a mean of 81.40(SD : 13.98). 2. The score on the quality of life scale ranged from 72 to 166 with a mean of 119.67(SD : 21.71). 3. In the relationship between social-demographic & spiritual well-being were significant difference in religion, the degree of faith & education. 4. There were significant correlations between spiritual well-being and quality of life. (gamma=.584, P<.001) 5. Existential spiritual well-being had significant effect on quality of life.(37%) In conclusion, the results propose the processes from spiritual well-being to quality of Life through religion. Spiritual well-being intervention programs are needed to improve the quality of life in cancer patients.
Education ; Humans ; Quality of Life* ; Seoul

The purpose of this study is to explore and describe the lived experience of leukemia patients by eliciting their verbal description of the experience. Participants were persons who were diagnosed with leukemia at the hospital and living at home after treatment. Data were obtained from interview of five leukemia patients and experience journals of 10 leukemia patients. Interview were tape recorded and transcribe verbation. The transcripts were analyzed by Colaizzi method. Major theme clusters that were emerged from the analysis are "Urgency or Impendence", "Terribleness or Miserableness", "Uncertainty", "Searching for hope" and "Spiritual well-being". The results of this study may help nurse to implement more efficient nursing strategies for leukemia patients by deeply understanding their lived experience and to develop quality of life program for leukemia patients.
Humans ; Leukemia* ; Nursing ; Quality of Life

PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to develop a Web-based flash content for fighting spirit promotion and to test its effect on cancer patients' fighting spirit. METHODS: The 15-minute long Web-based flash content was developed using the following 5 process: analysis, planning, development, program operation and evaluation stages and utilized the multiple edition and revision processes from December 2005 to August 2006. The evaluation was done by one group pretest-posttest design. Study subjects were 17 cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy. The group were received a 2-week intervention, a day weekly, and measured the variables at baseline, 4 weeks later. The study was performed from August 2006 to February 2007 at a cancer center in Korea. Fighting spirit was measured by Mini-MAC(Mental Adjustment to Cancer). Data was analysed by descriptive statistics and paired t-test using SAS 9.13 program. RESULTS: On the Web-based flash content, there are 4 menu bars that consisted of cancer diagnosis, symptom management, stress management, and cancer survivorship. The study group revealed significantly more fighting spirit than pre-test(t=-3.04, p=.008). CONCLUSION: This Web-based flash content can be utilized in psychosocial interventions for promoting fighting spirit in patients with cancer.
Humans ; Korea ; Phenothiazines ; Social Planning ; Survival Rate ; Surveys and Questionnaires

PURPOSE: This study explored and described the living spiritual experience and was attempted to gain an understanding of spirituality. This was done by eliciting participants' verbal descriptions of their experiences. METHOD: Data was obtained from in-depth interviews with one cancer patient, one pastor, and three missionaries after obtaining informed consent from each. Interviews were tape recorded and transcribed verbatim. The transcripts were analyzed using Colaizzi's phenomenological method. Sandelowski's evaluation criteria for qualitative research, such as reliability, suitability and auditability, were also used to establish reliability and validity of this study. RESULT: The five major theme clusters that designated the essence of the spiritual experience, "spiritual awareness," "interconnectedness," "love," "transcendent energy," "purpose and meaning in life," emerged from the analysis. CONCLUSION: This study revealed that spirituality was activated by awareness through introspection and interconnectedness with a Supreme Being. The interconnectedness with a Supreme Being played an important role in harmonious relationships with others and self. It also resulted in revealing the other beneticial attributes of spirituality. Love, the core concept of the interconnectedness, worked as a transcendent energy. Also, the ability to see beyond reality and resulted in finding meaning in life and accomplishing well being.
Humans ; Informed Consent ; Love ; Missions and Missionaries ; Qualitative Research ; Reproducibility of Results ; Spirituality*

PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to suggest the projected manpower of hospice and palliative care nurses & APNs(advanced practice nurses)needed in the future. METHOD: Need model, ratio model and expert opinion were used for projecting the number of hospice and palliative care nurses & APNs. RESULT: 1. The number of Korean hospice facilities was 64 in 2002. The number of hospice nurses in 2001 was 194 and that of beds was 407. 2. The number of hospice target patients was estimated at a minimum of 16,415 to a maximum of 25,254 in 2002, 12,366 to 26,389 in 2005, and 14,057 to 30,000 in 2020. 3. The number of hospice and palliative nurses needed to meet the demands in 2002, 2005 and 2020 was estimated at a minimum of 1,136 to maximum of 1,748, 1,187 to 1,826, and 1,349 to 2,076, respectively. 4. The number of hospice & palliative care APNs needed to meet the demands in 2002, 2005 and 2020 was estimated at 232, 242, and 274, respectively. CONCLUSION: The legalization of hospice is expected to increase demands for hospice nurses and advanced practice hospice and palliative care nurses in the future.
Expert Testimony ; Hospices* ; Humans ; Korea* ; Palliative Care*

PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of a spirituality/hope promoting program on fighting spirit, helplessness, anxiety, and self-care behaviors. METHODS: A nonequivalent control group pretest- posttest design was used. Study subjects were 22 cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy for the experimental group and 31 for the control group. The experimental group received a 4-week intervention, 30-50 minutes a day weekly. Variables were measured at baseline, 4 and 8 weeks later. Fighting spirit and helplessness were measured by MAC(Mental Adjustment to Cancer) and anxiety was measured by Hospital Anxiety and Depression scale. Self-care behaviors scale developed by Oh et al.,(1997) was used. RESULTS: The experimental group revealed significantly more fighting spirit(t=-4.10, p=.000). more self-care behaviors(t=-5.91, p=.000). and less helplessness(t=3.94, p=.000). No difference, however, was found in anxiety between the two groups(t=.24, p=.861). CONCLUSION: These results suggested positive effects of a spirituality/hope intervention program. Helplessness decreased mainly through an increase in fighting spirit. Self-care behaviors increased mainly through an decrease in helplessness and increase in fighting spirit.
Anxiety ; Depression ; Humans ; Self Care ; Spirituality

PURPOSE: This study was conducted to 1) find out the frequency of tobacco control intervention, barriers, and facilitators. 2) compare the differences in tobacco control intervention, barriers, and facilitators between oncology nurses and general nurses. METHOD: A sample was composed of 96 oncology nurses and 284 general nurses. The survey questionnaire was mailed out to nurses who were working at the randomly selected hospitals throughout the country. The questionnaire was adopted from the study of national survey on oncology nurse's tobacco interventions in United States by Sarnar, et al.(2000). RESULTS: Oncology nurses were found to provide tobacco control interventions more frequently comparing to the general nurses. "Patient not motivated to quit smoking", "Lack of time", "Lack of recognition/ rewards", were the most commonly identified barriers. "Patient wants to quit", "Adequate time", "Confidence in ability help people to stop smoking", were the most commonly identified facilitators. CONCLUSIONS: Although oncology nurses are in an important position in delivering tobacco interventions and providing resources, their participation in consistent delivery of a tobacco control intervention was less than desirable. To help nurses participate in the assessment of tobacco use and interventions for cessation, the development of educational program is necessary.
Postal Service ; Tobacco Use ; Tobacco* ; United States ; Surveys and Questionnaires

PURPOSE: This study was performed to analyze the characteristics and effect sizes of intervention studies on foot-reflexo-massage applied to cancer patients. METHODS: For meta-analysis, a total of 159 studies were retrieved from search engines such as RISS, nanet, KISS, richis and KoreaMed. 16 studies published from 1990 to 2010 were selected based on the inclusion criteria. The data were analyzed with the RevMan 5.0 program of Cochrane library. RESULTS: 1) The mean score of 1 implement time on foot-reflexo-massage was 25.62 minutes, the average number of days was 4.12 days, and the total number of average intervention frequency was 4.25 times. 2) Intervention studies on foot-reflexo-massage included 9 studies on anxiety (56.3%), 7 for pain (43.8%), 5 for BP/pulse (31.3%), 5 for fatigue (31.3%), 3 for nausea/vomiting (18.8%), 3 for sleep satisfaction (18.8%), and 2 for depression (12.5%). 3) The effect sizes of the intervention studies that showed higher effect size were in order, anxiety (d=-1.76), fatigue (d=-1.43), depression (d=-1.03), nausea and vomiting (d=-0.83), pain (d=-0.77), pulse rate (d=-0.61), blood pressure (d=-0.55), and sleep satisfaction (d=0.43). CONCLUSION: This study suggests that foot-reflexo-massage can increase sleep satisfaction, whereas decreasing blood pressure, pulse rate, anxiety, fatigue, depression, nausea, vomiting and pain.
Anxiety ; Blood Pressure ; Depression ; Fatigue ; Foot ; Heart Rate ; Humans ; Clinical Trial ; Massage ; Nausea ; Search Engine ; Vomiting

PURPOSE: This study was to analyze the characteristics and effect size of intervention studies in reference to cancer pain. METHODS: In order to conduct a meta-analysis, a total of 208 studies were retrieved from search engine. And 29 studies published from 2000 to 2010 were selected upon their satisfaction with the inclusion criteria. The data was analyzed by the RevMan 5.0 program of Cochrane library. RESULTS: 1) Intervention studies included 7 studies on reflexology (24.1%), 5 for pain management education (17.2%), 3 studies for each music therapy, spiritual care and hand massage (10.3%, respectively), and 2 studies for each hospice and horticultural therapy (6.7%, respectively). 2) The effect size of the intervention studies were high in hand massage (d=-0.98), reflexology (d=-0.74), spiritual care (d=-0.72), pain management education (d=-0.66), music therapy (d=-0.41), and horticultural therapy (d=-0.32). CONCLUSION: This study suggest that non-drug therapy can reduce the levels of cancer pain intensity, even though the numbers of intervention studies and randomized controlled trials are very rare.
Hand ; Horticultural Therapy ; Hospices ; Clinical Trial ; Massage ; Music Therapy ; Pain Management ; Search Engine

Since cancer is not easily curable, patients who suffer from cancer may have physical, psychological and spiritual problems for the rest of their lives. Especially when cancer patients do not have much to live for and are placing a burden on their family they will experience more suffering emotionally as much as physically. This study was conducted to provide a basis of data for nursing intervention strategies to minimize a cancer patient`s suffering and to understand the relationship between suffering, burden and the meaning of life in cancer patients. The samples were composed of 160 cancer patients who were inpatients or outpatients of two university hospitals and two general hospitals in Seoul. Data collection were carried out from January, 25, 1999 to February, 26, 1999. The data were analyzed using a SAS program for descriptive statistics, pearson correlations, ANOVA, and Duncan tests. The results were as follows; 1. The scores on the two suffering scale ranged from 132 to 40 with a mean of 87.3(SD 17.5). The mean scores on the burden scale is 28.9(SD 6.9) and the score of the meaning of life ranged from 35 to 51 with a mean of 95.6(SD 18.4). 2. There were significant correlations between the amount of suffering and the magnitude of burden (r=.74, p=.00), the suffering and the meaning of life (r=-.59, p=.00) and the burden and meaning of life (r=-.61, p=.00). 3. In the degree of the suffering, the burden and the meaning of life were two very strong factors, the level of the suffering in cancer patients by age (F=2.64, p=.03) and education level (F=4.16, p=.00). The level of the burden in cancer patients differed by education level (F=4.70, p=.00) and type of cancer (F=2.97, p= .03). Also the level of the meaning of life in cancer patients was different by education level (F=3.55, p=.02). In conclusion, the burden and the meaning of life was identified as important variable that is contributed to reduce the suffering of cancer patients.
Surveys and Questionnaires ; Education ; Hospitals, General ; Hospitals, University ; Humans ; Inpatients ; Nursing ; Outpatients ; Seoul ; Statistics as Topic*