Introduction
The addressed problem is nausea and vomiting from which patients with such diseases as cancer who receive chemotherapy suffer, and these conditions significantly decrease their quality of life, which is already damaged due to their diseases. To reduce the negative effects of nausea and vomiting on patients’ state, it is proposed to apply a cost-free nursing intervention consisting of three main components: acupressure, nursing counseling, and nutrition advice. The latter component particularly implies advising patients to include more ginger or ginger supplements in their diets because this product has been confirmed to alleviate chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting (Marx et al., 2013).
The PICOT format can be used to describe and assess the proposed intervention. The proposed PICOT question is as follows: In patients suffering from such conditions as cancer, receiving chemotherapy, and experiencing the negative effects of nausea and vomiting, how does the nursing intervention involving acupressure, counseling, and nutrition advice affect their nausea, vomiting, and the negative psychological effects of the two conditions compared to those chemotherapy patients who experience nausea and vomiting, too, but do not receive the intervention within the entire period during which chemotherapy is administered?
Analysis
The recognized problem behind the necessity for such an intervention and for assessing its impact and effectiveness is that patients who are diagnosed with cancer or similar conditions and receive chemotherapy as treatment experience many problems, and nausea and vomiting deteriorate their state, while there are cost-free ways to alleviate the negative effects of these two particular issues associated with chemotherapy treatment.
These problems may include cancer-related pain, the psychological pressure of having a grave disease, the need to dedicate a significant portion, if not most, of their time and energy to treatment, and the fact that they have to stay in a hospital environment, which is a challenge for many people. Nausea and vomiting are common side effects of chemotherapy (Hilarius et al., 2012); however, there are many more negative consequences for a patient of administering this treatment, which is why it is necessary for the team of health care providers to strive for alleviating those negative effects that can be alleviated, especially if alleviation is cost-free and can be provided as part of nursing care under clinical conditions like the proposed intervention.
It should be mentioned that nausea and vomiting can be observed among patients who do not receive chemotherapy but anticipate it, and the pressure of anticipating the type of treatment that is known to be rather harsh induces the two conditions in patients (Kamen et al., 2014). These findings confirm that nausea and vomiting are closely connected to patients’ psychological state during their treatment; therefore, providing comfort and counseling to patients is what nurse practitioners can do to effectively address the problem.
The proposed intervention of three components is evidence-based because the effectiveness of acupuncture, counseling, and higher consumption of ginger has been confirmed. It is important that the intervention implies activities that are part of normal nursing practice and delivery of patient care. Therefore, nurses will not need to go through extensive training or reorganize their work in order to deliver the intervention. The choice of a health care agency for the delivery of the intervention should be made based on the availability of nurses for the delivery of the intervention and the availability of patients eligible for it. The experience of the intervention can be further used by other health care agencies to distribute the information on the intervention’s effectiveness.
References
Hilarius, D. L., Kloeg, P. H., van der Wall, E., van den Heuvel, J. J., Gundy, C. M., & Aaronson, N. K. (2012). Chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting in daily clinical practice: A community hospital-based study. Supportive Care in Cancer, 20(1), 107-117.
Kamen, C., Tejani, M. A., Chandwani, K., Janelsins, M., Peoples, A. R., Roscoe, J. A., & Morrow, G. R. (2014). Anticipatory nausea and vomiting due to chemotherapy. European Journal of Pharmacology, 722(1), 172-179.
Marx, W. M., Teleni, L., McCarthy, A. L., Vitetta, L., McKavanagh, D., Thomson, D., & Isenring, E. (2013). Ginger (Zingiber officinale) and chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting: A systematic literature review. Nutrition Reviews, 71(4), 245-254.