| 1. |
- Heikkilä, Katriina, et al.
(författare)
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Work stress and risk of cancer: meta-analysis of 5700 incident cancer events in 116 000 European men and women
- 2013
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Ingår i: The BMJ. - : BMJ. - 1756-1833. ; 345:f165
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Objective To investigate whether work related stress, measured and defined as job strain, is associated with the overall risk of cancer and the risk of colorectal, lung, breast, or prostate cancers.Design Meta-analysis of pooled prospective individual participant data from 12 European cohort studies including 116 056 men and women aged 17-70 who were free from cancer at study baseline and were followed-up for a median of 12 years. Work stress was measured and defined as job strain, which was self reported at baseline. Incident cancers (all n=5765, colorectal cancer n=522, lung cancer n=374, breast cancer n=1010, prostate cancer n=865) were ascertained from cancer, hospital admission, and death registers. Data were analysed in each study with Cox regression and the study specific estimates pooled in meta-analyses. Models were adjusted for age, sex, socioeconomic position, body mass index (BMI), smoking, and alcohol intakeResults A harmonised measure of work stress, high job strain, was not associated with overall risk of cancer (hazard ratio 0.97, 95% confidence interval 0.90 to 1.04) in the multivariable adjusted analyses. Similarly, no association was observed between job strain and the risk of colorectal (1.16, 0.90 to 1.48), lung (1.17, 0.88 to 1.54), breast (0.97, 0.82 to 1.14), or prostate (0.86, 0.68 to 1.09) cancers. There was no clear evidence for an association between the categories of job strain and the risk of cancer.Conclusions These findings suggest that work related stress, measured and defined as job strain, at baseline is unlikely to be an important risk factor for colorectal, lung, breast, or prostate cancers.
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| 2. |
- Udo, Camilla, et al.
(författare)
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Surgical nurses' work-related stress when caring for severely ill and dying patients in cancer after participating in an educational intervention on existential issues.
- 2013
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Ingår i: European journal of oncology nursing : the official journal of European Oncology Nursing Society. - : Elsevier BV. - 1532-2122 .- 1462-3889. ; 17:5, s. 546-553
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- AIM: The aim of this study was to describe surgical nurses' perceived work-related stress in the care of severely ill and dying patients with cancer after participating in an educational intervention on existential issues. METHODS AND SAMPLE: This article reports a mixed methods pilot study of an education programme consisting of lectures and supervised discussions conducted in 2009-2010 in three surgical wards in a county hospital in Sweden. The concurrent data collections consisted of repeated interviews with eleven nurses in an educational group, and questionnaires were distributed to 42 nurses on four occasions. RESULTS: Directly after the educational intervention, the nurses described working under high time pressure. They also described being hindered in caring because of discrepancies between their caring intentions and what was possible in the surgical care context. Six months later, the nurses described a change in decision making, and a shift in the caring to make it more in line with their own intentions and patients' needs rather than the organizational structure. They also reported decreased feelings of work-related stress, decreased stress associated with work-load and feeling less disappointed at work. CONCLUSIONS: Results indicate that it may be possible to influence nurses' work-related stress through an educational intervention. According to nurses' descriptions, reflecting on their ways of caring for severely ill and dying patients, many of whom had cancer, from an existential perspective, had contributed to enhanced independent decision making in caring. This in turn appears to have decreased their feelings of work-related stress and disappointment at work.
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| 3. |
- Knutsson, Anders, 1942-, et al.
(författare)
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Breast cancer among shift workers : results of the WOLF longitudinal cohort study
- 2013
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Ingår i: Scandinavian Journal of Work, Environment and Health. - : Scandinavian Journal of Work, Environment and Health. - 0355-3140 .- 1795-990X. ; 39:2, s. 170-177
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to investigate whether shift work (with or without night work) is associated with increased risk of breast cancer. METHODS: The population consisted of 4036 women. Data were obtained from WOLF (Work, Lipids, and Fibrinogen), a longitudinal cohort study. Information about baseline characteristics was based on questionnaire responses and medical examination. Cancer incidence from baseline to follow-up was obtained from the national cancer registry. Two exposure groups were identified: shift work with and without night work. The group with day work only was used as the reference group in the analysis. Cox regression analysis was used to calculate relative risk. RESULTS: In total, 94 women developed breast cancer during follow-up. The average follow-up time was 12.4 years. The hazard ratio for breast cancer was 1.23 [95% confidence interval (95% CI) 0.70-2.17] for shifts without night work and 2.02 (95% CI 1.03-3.95) for shifts with night work. When including only women <60 years of age, the risk estimates were 1.18 (95% CI 0.67-2.07) for shifts without night work, and 2.15 (95% CI 1.10-4.21) for shifts with night work. CONCLUSIONS: Our results indicate an increased risk for breast cancer among women who work shifts that includes night work.
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| 4. |
- Näppä, Ulla, 1960-
(författare)
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Dilemmas in palliative chemotherapy when approaching end-of-life
- 2014
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Background When cure is no longer possible, medical care should aim for a transition to palliative care regardless of disease. Patients with incurable cancer are often treated with palliative chemotherapy (PCT), starting with the intent to prolong life and increase quality of life. Eventually, in the late stages of the disease, the patient reaches a transition phase when further PCT neither prolongs life nor adds any predominantly positive effects.Aim of the thesisStudy I: To analyse the proportion of patients with incurable cancer who received palliative chemotherapy during the last month of life, and to identify their discriminative characteristics.Study II: To develop a questionnaire assessing performance status in palliative chemotherapy, and to test its psychometric properties.Study III: To explore challenging situations experienced by registered nurses when administering palliative chemotherapy to patients with incurable cancer.Study IV: To investigate whether routine use of the Performance Status in Palliative Chemotherapy (PSPC) questionnaire in PCT would affect the proportion of patients receiving PCT during the last month of life, hospital admissions, notifications of performance status, documented decisions of ceasing PCT in the medical records, and/or place of death. A secondary aim was to gather registered nurses’ experiences of PSPC in clinical use.Methods In Studies I and IV, information from the medical records of deceased patients with epithelial cancers was used in descriptive analyses of the proportions of patients receiving PCT in counties in northernmost Sweden. A quantitative design was chosen, using non-parametric statistical methods. In Study II, a brief patient-completed questionnaire assessing performance status was developed and psychometrically tested. In Study III, data from research interviews with registered nurses were analysed qualitatively with a narrative thematic approach.Results Studies I and IV showed that about 25% of patients receiving PCT were treated during the last month of life. This group of patients had more hospital admissions, were less likely to die at home, and had fewer instances of documentation of the decision to cease PCT. The questionnaire developed in Study II was shown to have acceptable psychometric qualities such as reliability, validity, and sensitivity to detect deterioration in performance status. Study IV showed that the questionnaire gave nurses valuable information about patients’ performance status. The results also showed that 97% of nurses and 48% of physicians documented their patients’ performance status in the medical records. Study III demonstrated that when nurses administered PCT they considered futile, they could experience dilemmas created by the unforeseeable outcomes of PCT or stemming from insufficient communication between nurses, patients, next-of-kin, and physicians.Conclusions Administration of PCT can create dilemmatic situations for both the patient and medical staff when approaching end-of-life. This is underlined by the finding that some 25% of treated patients received their last round of PCT as late as during the last month of life. The decisions to cease PCT were less likely to be documented for patients who had received PCT within a month before death. Nurses described situations where they felt they were in the middle of the decision-making process regarding whether or not to continue PCT. They found the treatments were given on the authority of someone else; the physician’s recommendation or the patient’s and/or relatives’ request.The unpredictability of PCT was a continuous theme in the work described in this thesis, emphasizing the necessity of individually assessing every patient before PCT in order to minimize the risk of futile treatments. The attempt to develop a reliable and valid questionnaire for systematic assessment of performance status has increased future possibilities to monitor this parameter in PCT when approaching end-of-life. The questionnaire developed as part of this thesis has provided nurses with increased knowledge of patients’ performance status. If routinely used, it may help decrease the proportion of patients receiving PCT during the last month of life, though this remains to be rigorously proven. Further research efforts are needed to progress in the task of optimizing rather than maximizing the use of PCT when approaching end-of-life.
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| 5. |
- Henoch, Ingela, 1956, et al.
(författare)
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Training Intervention for Health Care Staff in the Provision of Existential Support to Patients With Cancer : A Randomized, Controlled Study
- 2013
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Ingår i: Journal of Pain and Symptom Management. - : Elsevier. - 0885-3924 .- 1873-6513. ; 46:6, s. 785-794
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Context: When a patient receives a cancer diagnosis, existential issues become more compelling. Throughout the illness trajectory, patients with cancer are cared for in oncology wards, by home care teams or in hospices. Nurses working with these patients are sometimes aware of the patients' existential needs but do not feel confident when discussing these issues.Objectives: To determine the effects of a training intervention, where the focus is on existential issues and nurses' perceived confidence in communication and their attitude toward caring for dying patients.Methods: This was a randomized, controlled trial with a training intervention comprising theoretical training in existential issues combined with individual and group reflection. In total, 102 nurses in oncology and hospice wards and in palliative home care teams were randomized to a training or non-training group. Primary outcomes, confidence in communication, and attitude toward the care of dying patients were measured at baseline, immediately after the training, and five to six months later.Results: Confidence in communication improved significantly in the training group from baseline (before the training) to both the first and second follow-up, that is, immediately after the training and five months later. The attitude toward caring for the dying did not improve in the training group.Conclusion: This study shows that short-term training with reflection improves the confidence of health care staff when communicating, which is important for health care managers with limited resources. Further studies are needed to explore how patients experience the communication skills of health care staff after such training.
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| 6. |
- Näppä, Ulla, 1960-, et al.
(författare)
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Challenging situations when administering palliative chemotherapy : a nursing perspective
- 2014
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Ingår i: European Journal of Oncology Nursing. - : Elsevier. - 1462-3889 .- 1532-2122. ; 18:6, s. 591-597
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Tidskriftsartikel (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Palliative chemotherapy treatments (PCT) are becoming more common for patients with incurable cancer; a basic challenge is to optimize tumour response while minimizing side-effects and harm. As registered nurses most often administer PCT, they are most likely to be confronted with difficult situations during PCT administration. This study explores challenging situations experienced by nurses when administering PCT to patients with incurable cancer.Methods: Registered nurses experienced in administering PCT were asked in interviews to recall PCT situations they found challenging. Inspired by the narrative tradition, stories were elicited and analysed using a structural and thematic narrative analysis.Results: A total of twenty-eight stories were narrated by seventeen nurses. Twenty of these were dilemmas that could be sorted into three storylines containing one to three dilemmatic situations each. The six dilemmatic situations broadly related to three interwoven areas: the uncertainty of the outcome when giving potent drugs to vulnerable patients; the difficulty of resisting giving PCT to patients who want it; and insufficient communication between nurses and physician.Conclusion: Nurses who administer PCT are engaged in a complex task that can give rise to a number of dilemmatic situations. The findings may be interpreted as meaning that at least some situations might be preventable if the knowledge and insight of all team members – nurses, physicians, patients, and relatives – are jointly communicated and taken into account when deciding whether or not to give PCT. Forming palliative care teams early in the PCT trajectory, could be beneficial for staff and patients.
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| 7. |
- Koptyug, Andrey, 1956-, et al.
(författare)
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Towards personalised medicine : Problems of the drug therapy of cancer
- 2011
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Ingår i: Science First Hand. - Novosibirsk, Russia : Infolio Press. - 1810-8520. ; 38:2, s. 91-97
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Tidskriftsartikel (populärvet., debatt m.m.)abstract
- During the fall of 2010 headlines like "Aspirin a day helps to keep cancer at bay, say scientists" hit the world media. It appeared that all of these were inspired by a single publication in The Lancet. This research article shows that regular administration of small doses of aspirin reduces the mortality from certain types of cancer (like the bowel, lung and prostate cancers). In the present paper, we consider this phenomenon as well. The widespread reaction of the public and media to these headlines has persuaded us to write this paper without delay.
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| 8. |
- Högberg, Cecilia, et al.
(författare)
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Immunochemical faecal occult blood tests in primary care and the risk of delay in the diagnosis of colorectal cancer
- 2013
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Ingår i: Scandinavian Journal of Primary Health Care. - : Informa UK Limited. - 0281-3432 .- 1502-7724. ; 31:4, s. 209-214
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Objective. To evaluate the value, risks, and shortcomings of immunochemical faecal occult blood tests (iFOBTs) in the diagnosis of colorectal cancer (CRC) and adenomas with high-grade dysplasia (HGD) in patients initially presenting to primary care. Design. A retrospective population-based study. Setting and subjects. All 495 cases of CRC and adenomas with HGD diagnosed in the county of Jamtland, Sweden from 2005 to 2009. Results. Of 495 patients 323 (65%) initially presented to primary care. IFOBTs were performed in 215 of 323 (67%) patients. The sensitivity of iFOBT for CRC and adenomas with HGD was 88% (83% when patients with a history of rectal bleeding were excluded). Of 34 patients with anaemia found en passant, 10 had negative iFOBTs. Time to diagnosis was longer for patients with negative iFOBTs (p < 0.0005). Conclusion. IFOBT might be helpful in selecting which patients to refer for colonoscopy. However, iFOBT has a limited sensitivity as a diagnostic test for CRC and adenomas with HGD. Relying only on iFOBT for colonoscopy referral could delay diagnosis, especially for patients with anaemia found en passant.
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| 9. |
- Landgren, Annelie M., et al.
(författare)
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Autoimmune Disease and Subsequent Risk of Developing Alimentary Tract Cancers Among 4.5 Million US Male Veterans
- 2011
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Ingår i: Cancer. - : Wiley. - 0008-543X .- 1097-0142. ; 117:6, s. 1163-1171
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- BACKGROUND: Autoimmunity is clearly linked with hematologic malignancies, but less is known about autoimmunity and alimentary tract cancer risk, despite the specific targeting of alimentary organs and tissues by several autoimmune diseases. The authors therefore conducted the first systematic evaluation of a broad range of specific autoimmune diseases and risk for subsequent alimentary tract cancer. METHODS: On the basis of 4,501,578 US male veterans, the authors identified 96,277 men who developed alimentary tract cancer during up to 26.2 years of follow-up. By using Poisson regression methods, the authors calculated relative risks (RRs) and 95% confidence intervals. RESULTS: A history of autoimmune disease with localized alimentary tract effects generally increased cancer risks in the organ(s) affected by the autoimmune disease, such as primary biliary cirrhosis and liver cancer (RR, 6.01; 95% confidence interval [Cl], 4.76-7.57); pernicious anemia and stomach cancer (RR, 3.17; 95% Cl, 2.47-4.07); and ulcerative colitis and small intestine, colon, and rectal cancers (RR, 2.53; 95% Cl, 1.05-6.11; RR, 2.06; 95% Cl, 1.70-2.48; and RR, 2.07; 95% Cl, 1.62-2.64, respectively). In addition, a history of celiac disease, reactive arthritis (Reiter disease), and systemic sclerosis all were associated significantly with increased risk of esophageal cancer (RR, 1.86-2.86). Autoimmune diseases without localized alimentary tract effects generally were not associated with alimentary tract cancer risk, with the exception of decreased risk for multiple alimentary tract cancers associated with a history of multiple sclerosis. CONCLUSIONS: These findings support the importance of localized inflammation in alimentary tract carcinogenesis. Future research is needed to confirm the findings and improve understanding of underlying mechanisms by which autoimmune diseases contribute to alimentary tract carcinogenesis. Cancer 2011;117:1163-71. Published 2010 by the American Cancer Society*
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| 10. |
- Näppä, Ulla, et al.
(författare)
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Avoiding harmful palliative chemotherapy treatment in the end of life : development of a brief patient-completed questionnaire for routine assessment of performance status
- 2012
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Ingår i: The journal of supportive oncology. - : Elsevier. - 1544-6794. ; 10:6, s. 230-237
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- BACKGROUND: Earlier studies have shown that up to 43% of patients with incurable cancer are treated with palliative chemotherapy in the last month of their lives. Although pretreatment blood tests are acceptable, the patient's general condition may not permit further palliative chemotherapy treatment (PCT). Presently, there is no patient self-assessment tool available to monitor performance status during PCT.OBJECTIVES: To describe the development process of the Performance Status in Palliative Chemotherapy (PSPC) questionnaire, and the testing of its psychometric properties.METHODS: The questionnaire was developed by the authors based on the Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group Performance Status Rating (ECOG PSR) scale as well as their clinical experience with PCT. Adult patients who were diagnosed with epithelial cancers (n = 118) were enrolled to test the PSPC questionnaire for reliability, sensitivity for change, and validity.RESULTS: After stepwise modifications of the PSPC questionnaire, psychometric tests revealed acceptable values for reliability (via a test-retest method), sensitivity for change (via a comparison of patients with progressive disease over time), and validity (via a comparison of the PSPC vs the Edmonton Symptom Assessment System [ESAS]).LIMITATIONS: At this stage of questionnaire development, we are unable to conclude whether the PSPC is superior to the conventional ECOG PSR in the evaluation of performance status and the prediction of chemotherapy response.CONCLUSION: Psychometric tests suggest that the PSPC questionnaire may be a useful patient-completed tool in the late stages of cancer disease to routinely monitor performance status in palliative chemotherapy treatments so as to minimize the risk of inflicting more harm than good.
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