Nurse-Led Intervention Attempts to Address Posttreatment Needs of Lymphoma Survivors

Survivors of lymphoma may require individualized supportive care. Although a nurse-led lymphoma survivorship model did not provide clinically significant data, participants in the intervention group reported fewer unmet needs, less distress, and increased empowerment compared with those in the group that received only usual care.

According to researchers, typical treatment following lymphoma therapy can fail to address the supportive care needs of lymphoma survivors. To address this, researchers developed a randomized, controlled trial comparing a post-lymphoma intervention with usual care.

The nurse-led intervention included 3 in-person appointments, an individually customized survivorship care plan and treatment summary (SCPTS), and delivery of personalized resources, all of which was shared with the general practitioner.

A total of 60 patients were randomized to the intervention (n=30) and control (n=30) groups 3 months after completing lymphoma treatment. The Short-Form Survivor Unmet Needs Survey assessed unmet needs of survivorship, the Depression Anxiety Stress Scale 21 assessed distress, the Mini-Mental Adjustment to Cancer Scale assessed adjustment to cancer, and the Patient Empowerment Scale assessed self-empowerment at baseline, 3 months, and 6 months. Additionally, an evaluation survey for general practitioners addressed the perceived usefulness of the SCPTS.

By study completion, none of the measured traits were statistically different from each other. Unmet needs were 21.41 in the intervention group vs 25.72 in the control group (P =.506), distress was 13.03 in the intervention group vs 15.14 in the control group (P =.558), and self-empowerment was 50.21 in the intervention group vs 47.21 in the control group (P =.056).

The majority of general practitioners (81%) rated the SCPTS as “good” or “very good.”

“Whilst this pilot study was not sufficiently powered to demonstrate a significant effect between the 2 groups, the direction of change in the results suggests the nurse-led lymphoma survivorship model of care may be an effective adjunct to traditional follow-up by providing individualized and tailored supportive care after treatment completion to targeted cancer cohorts,” concluded the researchers.

Reference

Taylor K, Chivers P, Bulsara C, Joske D, Bulsara M, Monterosso L. Care After Lymphoma (CALy) trial: a phase II pilot pragmatic randomised controlled trial of a nurse-led model of survivorship care. Eur J Oncol Nurs. 2019;40:53-62.