The development of palliative care in terms of recognizing the needs of the dying,
palliative care becoming a nursing and medical speciality, the involvement of the
World Health Organization in palliative care and the continuous development of
treatment modalities available to cancer patients creates the expectation that the
outcomes for the patient should also be positively influenced. The purpose of the
study was to determine the most common symptoms of advanced cancer patients
treated in a public and private hospital in Tshwane, and whether advances in palliative
care improved the outcomes for these patients by decreasing the prevalence of
symptoms experienced. The design of the study was a quantitative survey. The
population consisted of patients with advanced cancer receiving palliative treatment
as out patients in radiation and medical oncology clinics in a public and private hospital
the Tshwane Metropolitan area. The sampling method was convenient and the sample
size was 148 participants (n=148). Data was gathered by means of an interview and self
report. Data analysis was done by means of descriptive statistics. The results of the
study indicated that a high number of patients still experience problems that could
have been prevented. Pain was found to be the biggest problem for patients (76.4%)
followed by weakness and fatigue (65.5%), nausea and vomiting (65.5%) and a dry
mouth (46.6%). Thirst was reported by 41.2% of the sample. The study provides
evidence that the development of palliative care did not have a positive outcome for
patients by reducing the prevalence of symptoms experienced.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:tut/oai:encore.tut.ac.za:d1000680 |
| Date | 06 1900 |
| Creators | Maree, JE, Wright, SCD |
| Publisher | Curationis |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text |
| Format | |
| Rights | Curationis |
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