Lesson Topics and Emotions That Pained or Saddened Nursing Students Who Had Lost Someone Close to Them in Lectures on Palliative Care

<p>Purpose: This study intended to clarify the lesson topics, lesson content and emotions that painfully saddened nursing students with experience of bereavement taking lectures on palliative care, as well as the emotional changes of these students and the support they expect from teachers. Methods: We conducted semi-structured interviews. Their emotions were analyzed following Krippendorff’s method. Results: Thirty-six nursing students participated in the study. Lesson topics and content included “the state and signs of loved ones near death,” and “general lessons.” Feelings and thoughts presented were “regret,” “remembering,” “emotional upset,” “feeling anxiety,” “feeling dissatisfied,” “experiencing a sense of discomfort”, and “empathizing with the people shown in the teaching material as well as their situations.” With the exception of one subject, all subjects experienced a positive change in their emotions. Regarding to the support, 20 people did not require additional support because of “nothing wrong” or “enough”. Conclusions: Teachers need to specifically explain support content and methods many times, and to face lessons with the strong desire to always support their students.</p>

Prevalence and characteristics of breakthrough pain in cancer patients: a pilot study

The aim of this study was to clarify the prevalence and characteristics of breakthrough pain in cancer patients. We conducted a cross-sectional survey of consecutive patients older than 20 years of age admitted to a University Hospital with a cancer diagnosis Breakthrough pain was defined as meeting all of the following criteria： Pain 1）with background pain present most of the time, 2）which is well controlled, 3）with short-lived episodes of exacerbation. One hundred and sixty-nine patients were recruited and 118（69.8％）completed the survey. Of these 118 patients, 11％（95％CI：7–18％）had breakthrough pain. Breakthrough pain occurred in 23％（14–35％）of patients with cancer-related pain and 29％（17–45％）of patients with pain from the cancer itself. Patients reported episodes occurring up to three times a day,a time to peak intensity of within 5 minutes, and a duration of untreated episodes of up to 15 minutes are 54％（29–77％）, 54％（29–77％）, 54％（29–77％）, respectively.