Background: Brain tumors are the most common solid tumors found in children. Current research is determining whether diagnosing brain tumors earlier will help improve prognosis and reduce long-term deficits; however, childhood brain tumors are often diagnosed late with a median time of 1-4 months from onset of symptoms. Prolonged symptom intervals before diagnosis have been associated with life-threatening risks, neuro-cognitive disabilities, and detrimental professional relationships between healthcare providers and families. Pediatric brain tumor clinical presentations are often non-specific and resemble less serious illnesses; therefore, healthcare providers are failing to include this in their differential diagnoses list. Purpose: To assess healthcare provider knowledge of signs and symptoms of pediatric brain tumors using The Brain Pathways Guideline. Methods: A one group pre-test and post-test e-mailed separately to nurse practitioners that have active membership in National Association of Pediatric Nurse Practitioners (NAPNAP) Arizona Chapter. Results: The Wilcoxon Signed Rank Test revealed that the matched test scores were not statistically significant (p=0.157) after viewing The Brain Pathways Guideline educational materials. Conclusion: The results of this study did not show a statistically significant difference in the test scores and therefore it cannot be concluded that presenting an evidence-based guideline to assist healthcare providers to assess and diagnose patients with brain tumors will be helpful to improve pre-diagnostic symptom intervals.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:arizona.edu/oai:arizona.openrepository.com:10150/593599 |
| Date | January 2015 |
| Creators | Tong, Amanda Kai-Lai |
| Contributors | Peek, Gloanna, Peek, Gloanna, Peek, Gloanna, Moore, Ida (Ki), Rishel, Cindy |
| Publisher | The University of Arizona. |
| Source Sets | University of Arizona |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text, Electronic Dissertation |
| Rights | Copyright © is held by the author. Digital access to this material is made possible by the University Libraries, University of Arizona. Further transmission, reproduction or presentation (such as public display or performance) of protected items is prohibited except with permission of the author. |
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