Narrative Research On The Psychological Distress In Patients With Ovarian Cancer

ObjectivesThis research was to generate narratives about the psychological distress in patients with ovarian cancer for the interpretation of distressful experiences in such cancer patients. These narratives were then used to construct and examine the intervention protocol targeting at psychological distresses to pave the way for future interventional practice in patients with ovarian cancer.MethodsThe research was carried out using a two-stage design:In the first stage, a narrative inquiry was conducted using the unstructured open interview in a convenient sample of 12 patients with ovarian cancer who were admitted to a provincial tertiary cancer hospital from September 2014 to January 2015. Three dimensional narrative analyses were performed to examine interview transcripts to the depth. These qualitative outcomes were used to refine the primary interventional protocol, derived from comprehensive literature review, for the reduction of psychological distresses in patients with ovarian cancer.In the second stage, a Randomized Controlled Trial (RCT) was conducted to examine the effect of the intervention aforementioned on the psychological distresses in a sample of 55 patients with ovarian cancer who were admitted to the same hospital from January 2015 to March 2015 and then allocated to the Control Group (n=30) and Interventional Group (n=25) using the coin-tossing procedure.The Control Group received routine nursing care, while the Intervention Group was treated with both the psychological distress intervention protocol and the routine nursing care. Psychological distress score changes were compared within and between these two groups before and after the intervention.ResultsTwo main themes were found from the narratives of psychological distress experiences in patients with ovarian cancer, that is,’unfinished tasks’and’unmet needs’.The psychological distress intervention was formulated to be carried out through the following three steps, a. identify the problem, b. review the life, and c. reconstruct the self.The distress thermometer (DT) scores were compared within the Control and Intervention group respectively before and after the psychological distress intervention. It was shown that there was no significant difference of DT scores (p>0.05) in the Control Group after the intervention, but not the Intervention Group (p<0.05). Before the intervention, no difference (p>0.05) was found between DT scores in the Control and the Intervention Group, but not that anymore after the intervention (p<0.05). These suggest that the proposed intervention be effective at reducing the psychological distress in patients with ovarian cancer.ConclusionsPsychological distresses in patients with ovarian cancer may be associated with different demands at different stages of human development. The intervention requiring the investigation into the value and meaningfulness of one’s life might be effective at reducing psychological distresses in patients with similar problems.