Adolescent cancer survivors' experiences of supportive care needs: A qualitative content analysis.

Supportive care is an important strategy that can help cancer survivors manage changes and problems during their follow-up care. Identifying patients' care needs is one of the primary steps of the nursing process to plan effective nursing interventions. The aim of this study was to explore adolescent cancer survivors' supportive care needs. Purposeful sampling was adopted to select 49 participants from hospitals to participate in face-to-face, semistructured interviews. The qualitative content analysis method was conducted for data analysis. Ten subcategories and four main categories - empathetic care, information about survival period, instrumental support, and cooperation in care - were extracted from the data. These four categories formed a major theme, "supportive care", as the primary healthcare need. This study highlights that supportive care should be developed collaboratively by family and healthcare providers to meet the needs of adolescent cancer survivors. Survivors' strengths and limitations should be identified, and then supportive care can be provided, such as giving appropriate information, enabling survivors to access supportive networks, and improving survivors' confidence and autonomy with their self-management.

The Relationship between Self-Efficacy and Psychosocial Care in Adolescents with Epilepsy.

Introduction. Studies about epilepsy are more associated with physiological aspects and drug therapy and far too little attention has been paid to psychological and social care, especially in teens. Hence, the present study aimed to assess relationship between self-efficacy and psychosocial care in adolescents with epilepsy. Methods. A cross-sectional association study was conducted on 74 consecutive adolescents aged 10 to 18 years with general attacks of epilepsy referred to Pediatric Neurology Clinics affiliated with the Tabriz University of Medical Sciences in 2013. Data were collected by interview using multisegment tools including demographic characteristics, self-efficacy scaling in children with epilepsy, and reporting tools for children psychosocial care. Results. Our study showed a significant association of self-efficacy with "information received" (P < 0.02) and also with "need for information or support" (P < 0.01) as well as "concerns and fears" (P < 0.01). The comments of doctor or nurse were directly associated with higher self-efficacy and patients' information needs were inversely associated with higher self-efficacy. Conclusion. For adolescents with epilepsy, providing educational materials such as pamphlets and booklets, designing especial websites, and setting especial meetings with and without parents separately are recommended. Scheduling psychosocial supports and collecting more information about this disorder for adolescents will be helpful.