Palliative Care in Breast Cancer During the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Scoping Review.

BACKGROUND: The COVID-19 pandemic has harmed the provision of palliative care (PC) services for women with breast cancer due to all the restrictions that came along with the virus. OBJECTIVE: To map the available evidence on the situation of PC in breast cancer during the COVID-19 pandemic. METHODS: A scoping review was carried out based on the methodology proposed by the Joanna Briggs Institute. The search was conducted in nine databases, one electronic repository, and one library, using controlled vocabularies. RESULTS: Twenty-nine articles and seven documents were included. The majority (11.4% each) were published in the United Kingdom, Italy, and the United States, 38.9% addressed palliative radiotherapy (RT), and 47.2% consisted of recommendations. From the content analysis, five categories were obtained focused on the recommendations on changes in palliative treatment guidelines and the response of PC teams to the evolving crisis. CONCLUSIONS: The evidence pointed to the management of general PC, palliative RT, palliative chemotherapy, management of metastatic breast cancer, and use of technologies in palliative care. No recommendations were found to manage frequent symptoms in PC, indicating the need to develop primary studies that investigate these aspects in detail in this vulnerable group. IMPLICATIONS: The results contained in this document can provide professionals working in this field of care with a global view of how other teams have dealt with the pandemic, thereby identifying the best guidelines to apply in their reality, taking into account the clinical and social situation of each patient.

Telenursing in the sexual function of women with breast cancer: A study protocol.

INTRODUCTION: Most women with breast cancer have sexual function problems related to cancer diagnosis and treatment. These problems harm the quality of life and relationships. However, most patients do not receive care or guidance regarding sexuality from healthcare providers. This study aimed to test the effect of telenursing counseling on sexual functioning in women undergoing breast cancer treatment. METHODS: This randomized clinical trial was conducted at 2 reference hospitals for cancer treatment. One hundred eight women with stage I-IV breast cancer undergoing treatment (surgery, chemotherapy, radiotherapy or hormone therapy) with a partner will be included in this study. The study was authorized by the Ethics Committee of the Federal University of Ceará (Opinion number: 46,13,609) and the Maternity School Assis Chateaubriand (Opinion number: 47,42,687). Patients will be allocated to the following groups: the control group, which will not receive an active intervention, and the intervention group, which will receive 3 telenursing counseling sessions for 6 weeks. The levels of sexual function in these patients before the intervention, soon after the intervention and at 12 weeks were compared and analyzed. All data will be collected and analyzed by the JASP program. RESULTS: Differences in levels of sexual function among women allocated to the control and intervention groups in the analyzed periods. CONCLUSION: This evidence-based nursing care strategy can be used to improve the sexual function of breast cancer patients and consequently their quality of life and marital relationship.