Breast cancer as a chronic illness: development of an instrument for assessment of self-management

• Grant number: 13/22043-3
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships abroad - Research
• Start date: May 19, 2014
• End date: January 18, 2015
• Field of knowledge: Health Sciences - Nursing - Public Health Nursing
• Principal Investigator: Thais de Oliveira Gozzo
• Grantee: Thais de Oliveira Gozzo
• Host Investigator: Debbie Cooke
• Host Institution: Escola de Enfermagem de Ribeirão Preto (EERP). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Ribeirão Preto , SP, Brazil
• Institution abroad: University of Surrey, England

Abstract

The attention to chronic non-communicable diseases (NCDs) such as cardiovascular diseases, cancer and diabetes is a global problem. Epidemiological data indicate alarming rise worldwide mortality, morbidity and disability attributed to the major chronic diseases. This change in the landscape of the occurrence of NCDs has also affected Brazil, where there was a predominance of infectious and parasitic diseases and disorders of maternal and child health. But in 2007, 72% of deaths that occurred were attributed to NCDs, highlighting the chronic cardiovascular, respiratory diseases, diabetes, cancers and kidney disease. To meet this new and growing demand, we need to transpose the care model focused on the disease, and move to an approach that values the patient as a whole. To implement this service model for chronic conditions, several changes are needed from the community to the health care system. Supported include self-care, which seeks to make productive interactions between health workers and users of the system. The supported self-care is different from telling people what to do, and requires collaboration between the health team and the user, which plays a central role and responsibility for their own health. One of the ways of achieving self-care supported self-management is translated as self-care, self-monitoring, or social support. Highlights that it is the only element that involves direct interactions between healthcare professionals and people living with chronic conditions. Among cancer patients, self-management interventions have been employed to provide information, educate the patient and pursue strategies to increase the welfare of these. Self-management interventions have been developed and tested over the last decade, but published studies and evidence of self-management programs for patients with cancer are limited and the concept of self-management was not readily applied in interventions for breast cancer. Although the number of studies focused on cancer patients is increasing, the definition of self-management programs seems to be misunderstood by many researchers. This study has the following objectives: identify the interventions used self-management for women with breast cancer; development an instrument to measure self-management for women with breast cancer, and validate the instrument developed. To be held this integrative literature review, which aims to gather and synthesize the knowledge produced about a topic. After the development of an assessment instrument of self -management will be held, followed by its validation. (AU)