Physical Activity Promotion, Beliefs, and Barriers Among Australasian Oncology Nurses.

PURPOSE/OBJECTIVES: To describe the physical activity (PA) promotion practices, beliefs, and barriers of Australasian oncology nurses and gain preliminary insight into how PA promotion practices may be affected by the demographics of the nurses.
. DESIGN: Cross-sectional survey.
. SETTING: Australia and New Zealand.
. SAMPLE: 119 registered oncology nurses.
. METHODS: Self-reported online survey completed once per participant.
. MAIN RESEARCH VARIABLES: Questions assessed the PA promotion beliefs (e.g., primary healthcare professionals responsible for PA promotion, treatment stage), PA benefits (e.g., primary benefits, evidence base), and PA promotion barriers of oncology nurses.
. FINDINGS: Oncology nurses believed they were the major providers of PA advice to their patients. They promoted PA prior to, during, and post-treatment. The three most commonly cited benefits of PA for their patients were improved quality of life, mental health, and activities of daily living. Lack of time, lack of adequate support structures, and risk to patient were the most common barriers to PA promotion. Relatively few significant differences in the oncology nurses' PA promotion practices, beliefs, and barriers were observed based on hospital location or years of experience.
. CONCLUSIONS: Despite numerous barriers, Australasian oncology nurses wish to promote PA to their patients with cancer across multiple treatment stages because they believe PA is beneficial for their patients.
. IMPLICATIONS FOR NURSING: Hospitals may need to better support oncology nurses in promoting PA to their patients and provide better referral pathways to exercise physiologists and physiotherapists.

Current nutrition promotion, beliefs and barriers among cancer nurses in Australia and New Zealand.

Rationale. Many cancer patients and survivors do not meet nutritional and physical activity guidelines, thus healthier eating and greater levels of physical activity could have considerable benefits for these individuals. While research has investigated cancer survivors' perspective on their challenges in meeting the nutrition and physical guidelines, little research has examined how health professionals may assist their patients meet these guidelines. Cancer nurses are ideally placed to promote healthy behaviours to their patients, especially if access to dieticians or dietary resources is limited. However, little is known about cancer nurses' healthy eating promotion practices to their patients. The primary aim of this study was to examine current healthy eating promotion practices, beliefs and barriers of cancer nurses in Australia and New Zealand. A secondary aim was to gain insight into whether these practices, beliefs and barriers were influenced by the nurses' hospital or years of work experience. Patients and Methods. An online questionnaire was used to obtain data. Sub-group cancer nurse comparisons were performed on hospital location (metropolitan vs regional and rural) and years of experience (<25 or ≥25 years) using ANOVA and chi square analysis for continuous and categorical data respectively. Results. A total of 123 Australasian cancer nurses responded to the survey. Cancer nurses believed they were often the major provider of nutritional advice to their cancer patients (32.5%), a value marginally less than dieticians (35.9%) but substantially higher than oncologists (3.3%). The majority promoted healthy eating prior (62.6%), during (74.8%) and post treatment (64.2%). Most cancer nurses felt that healthy eating had positive effects on the cancer patients' quality of life (85.4%), weight management (82.9%), mental health (80.5%), activities of daily living (79.7%) and risk of other chronic diseases (79.7%), although only 75.5% agreed or strongly agreed that this is due to a strong evidence base. Lack of time (25.8%), adequate support structures (17.3%) nutrition expertise (12.2%) were cited by the cancer nurses as the most common barriers to promoting healthy eating to their patients. Comparisons based on their hospital location and years of experience, revealed very few significant differences, indicating that cancer nurses' healthy eating promotion practices, beliefs and barriers were largely unaffected by hospital location or years of experience. Conclusion. Australasian cancer nurses have favourable attitudes towards promoting healthy eating to their cancer patients across multiple treatment stages and believe that healthy eating has many benefits for their patients. Unfortunately, several barriers to healthy eating promotion were reported. If these barriers can be overcome, nurses may be able to work more effectively with dieticians to improve the outcomes for cancer patients.

[Sex-specific antihypertensive drug therapy]. / Geschlechtsspezifische medikamentöse Therapie der Hypertonie.

BACKGROUND: Hypertension is a leading cause of cardiovascular diseases. To evaluate sex-specific differences in the prescription pattern of antihypertensive therapy, registry data from the regional health insurance fund "Burgenländische Gebietskrankenkasse" (BGKK) were analyzed. MATERIAL AND METHODS: In a retrospective cross sectional cohort study data from 41499 individuals covered by the BGKK in 2003, and who had been treated with cardiovascular drugs were analyzed. Data were evaluated according to drug classifications. RESULTS: Among subjects treated with cardiovascular medication 38.3 % were males and 61.7 % females. The drug classes acting on the renin-angiotensin-system were prescribed more frequently than beta-blockers, calcium channel blockers, diuretics and antihypertensives. Women were treated more often with diuretics and beta-blockers, whereas men received more antihypertensives and drugs acting on the renin angiotensin system (p < 0.01 between groups of sexes). CONCLUSION: Sex-specific differences exist regarding the prevalence of antihypertensive drug prescriptions between men and women. Further, the prescription pattern of equivalently effective medications differs between sexes.