Free Essay: Assessment Tools for Nausea and Vomiting

Many cancer patients often experience nausea and vomiting as common postoperative symptoms as well as responses to post-chemotherapeutic treatments. While this is considered a predictable patterns in many of these patients as with Betty, nausea, and vomiting can become a concern as they can lead to complications such as dehydration, weight loss, anorexia, electrolyte imbalances as well as the general deterioration of the patient's health (Ahmad, Alafafsheh & Ahmad, 2016). Patients who have active careers can also be disturbed and become uncomfortable while at work. Medically, the patient might abandon treatment for fear of continued symptoms.

Is your time best spent reading someone else’s essay? Get a 100% original essay FROM A CERTIFIED WRITER!

Order now

A variety of assessment and assessment tools have hence been developed to determine the probability of the patient to suffer from nausea and vomiting, as well as gauge the various parameters surrounding this complication. The Rhodes Index for nausea, vomiting, and retching (INVR) is an assessment tool that was developed by McDaniel and Rhodes in 1999. This tool consists of eight items, and these are the Likert scale (5-point), measurements of frequency, severity, duration, and distress the patient goes through, as well as capturing nausea, vomiting and retching (NVR). This tool has split-half reliability of 0.90, a correlational coefficient of 0.87, and a Cronbach's Alpha of 0.98 (Ahmad, Alafafsheh & Ahmad, 2016). It works within the first 12 hours. However, this tool has flaws more so regarding its lack of linkage with the time of chemotherapy. With this defect, it is difficult to assess whether nausea and vomiting are acute, delayed on anticipatory.

The Multinational Association of Supportive Care in Cancer (MASCC) is another assessment strategy applied in the clinical situation through its tool MAT. It's used once per cycle, within 24 hours of chemotherapy, for acute nausea, and between 24 hours and four days after chemotherapy for delayed nausea and vomiting. It has an internal consistency of 0.77 - 0.82.

Healthcare Team Members Helping Betty

Colorectal carcinoma patients usually demand intensive care from various healthcare personnel to help them undergo multiple operations, treatments, dietary adjustments, and pain. Betty had a number of personnel attending to her, including the general practitioner (GP) who arranged for all the test that needed to be taken, her doctor Dr. Glasson who undertook all the tests required for her diagnosis, as well as revealed the results to Betty and her husband, Bob. The doctor also offered counsel by highlighting the high odds that Betty had to recover due to an early diagnosis. Other people included the general surgeon and nurses.

Other medical personnel are often involved in the patient's journey from diagnosis to recovery. A medical oncologist is a member of the multidisciplinary teams, and is responsible for offering the cancer patients with systematic and comprehensive approaches to treatments as well as utilize evidence-based criteria compounded with cost-effective and safe treatment options as a way of ensuring quality of life and the recovery of the patients (Popescu, Schaefer, Califano & Eckert, 2013). The training of medical oncologists enables them to be in a position to comprehensively manage cancer patients, deliver treatments, and manage side-effect treatments. They are hence involved in research, diagnosis, rehabilitation, treatment, prevention, and palliative care of the patients. Cancer care coordinators (CCC) are another group of healthcare providers. They are a group of nurses who coordinate to provide the patient with consistent care from their diagnosis throughout the journey to recovery. The CCC works to improve timeliness in care, patient satisfaction, and increase equity (Collinson, Foster, Stapleton & Blakely, 2013). They lias with the different members who support the patient, among them the family members to ensure positive outcomes in treatment. They can either be clinical care coordinators of colorectal care coordinators.

Key Health Promotion and Prevention Strategies That Are In Place in Australia to Address Cancer as a Public Health Issue.

Australia, like the rest of the world, face a threat from the ever-growing cancer population. In 2014, for instance, about 128,000 Australians were diagnosed with cancer, and this makes 350 diagnoses per day. The situation was predicted only to get worse, as, by 2020, the numbers were anticipated to be 150,000 (Cancer Australia, 2014). The increase in cancer cases is outgrowing population growth, and this hence led to the Australian government to come up with a strategic plan termed as cancer control. This plan is that focuses on the reduction of cancer incidence and mortality and hence improve the quality of life for the thousands of Australians living with cancer. Cancer control utilizes evidence-based strategies to conduct effective and efficient screening programs that are population-based, development of better diagnostic measures, and earlier detection of cancer. Early detection is linked with survival.

Risk factors for cancer can be categorized as either behavioral, biomedical, or environmental. Smoking tobacco, obesity, overweight, physical inactivity, dietary risks, alcohol abuse, and exposure to the sun have been identified as a few of the many modifiable risk factors. Public education is hence, a critical aspect of the Australian government in a move to reduce the incidence and mortality of cancer.

References

Ahmad M., Alafafsheh A. & Ahmad M. (2016). Tool Development to Assess Nausea and Vomiting Among Patients Receiving Chemotherapy. International Journal of Cancer and Oncology. 3(1). Pp. 1-5. https://doi.org/10.15436/2377-0902.16.031

Cancer Australia Strategic Plan 2014-2019 (2014). Cancer Australia. https://canceraustralia.gov.au/sites/default/files/publications/cancer-australias-strategic-plan-2014-2019/pdf/2014_strategic_plan.pdf

Collinson L., Foster R. H., Stapleton M. & Blakely T. (2013). Cancer care coordinators: What are they and what will they cost? The New Zealand medical journal 126(1381). Pp.75-86. Retrieved from https://www.researchgate.net/publication/258036481_Cancer_care_coordinators_What_are_they_and_what_will_they_cost

Popescu R. A., Schaefer R., Califano R. & Eckert R. (2013). The current and future role of the medical oncologist in professional care for cancer patients: A position paper by the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO). Annals of Oncology 25(1). Pp. 9-15. DOI: 10.1093/annonc/mdt522