NRS 455 Benchmark – Applying the Nursing Process to Cancer Care

Sample Answer

Cancer is one of the chronic illnesses with a high disease burden globally. The affected populations suffer from poor quality of life, premature mortality, and increased healthcare costs for cancer management. Early diagnosis and treatment improve outcomes in different types of cancer.

Nurses and other healthcare providers should educate the public on the importance of utilizing health promotion services such as screening for timely cancer diagnosis and treatment. Therefore, this essay examines prostate cancer.

It focuses on its diagnosis, screening methods, care outcomes, incident rates, preventive measures, utilization of the nursing process, and interdisciplinary approach to its management. It also examines the role of the American Cancer Society in addressing prostate cancer.

Identified Cancer and Screening Methods

Prostate cancer is the selected cancer for analysis in this essay. Prostate cancer is a common malignancy and the fifth leading cause of mortalities in men. The cancer develops due to abnormal cell growth in the prostate gland.

Risk factors such as ethnicity, physical inactivity, elevated testosterone levels, hypertension, age, family history, and obesity are associated with prostate cancer. The risk of prostate cancer increases with age while its aggressiveness declines with age.

Patients diagnosed with prostate cancer usually present to the hospital with symptoms similar to those seen in benign prostatic hyperplasia such as nocturia, frequent urination, hematuria, dysuria, and difficulty starting and maintaining urine stream (Leslie et al., 2024). Patients also report problems with their sexual performance and function such as painful ejaculation or erection difficulties.

Prostate cancer screening is a practice undertaken in an asymptomatic population. The screening helps identify individuals at risk of or affected by prostate cancer. It also ensures timely treatment, which improves prognostic outcomes. Digital rectal examination and Prostate Specific Antigen tests are widely used for prostate cancer screening (Leslie et al., 2024).

Diagnostic Methods and TNM Method of Cancer Staging

Several diagnostic methods are used for diagnosing cancer. One of them is history taking and physical examination. History-taking provides subjective information that can be used to suspect cancer in a population. Physical examination techniques such as inspection, palpation, percussion, and auscultation also help in cancer diagnosis.

Laboratory investigations such as a complete blood count and microscopic analysis of body tissues also help in diagnosis. Diagnostic investigations such as ultrasounds, x-rays, magnetic resonance imaging, and CT scans also help in cancer diagnosis. The diagnostics help visualize the affected organs and determine the severity of tissue involvement.

Tissue biopsy can also be used for cancer diagnosis. Tissue samples are taken for laboratory analysis to identify the presence or absence of cancer cells in the affected body tissues (Leslie et al., 2024). Bone marrow aspirate can also be used to diagnose cancers involving the bone marrow.

The numerical method and the tumor, mode, and metastasized method of cancer staging (TNM) are used to determine the severity of cancer and appropriate treatments. The TNM system classified cancer based on tumor size, lymph node involvement, and determination of whether cancer cell metastasis has occurred or not.

Numbers are used to describe cancer in the TNM system. For example, TX means that the tumor size cannot be measured. T0 means absent tumor. T1, T2, T3, and T4 denote the extent of the primary tumor. The tumor has grown into the nearby tissues if the number is high.

NX means that cancer in surrounding lymph nodes cannot be measured; N0 means no cancer in surrounding lymph nodes, while N1, N2, and N3 provide information about the extent of lymph node involvement (Ogata et al., 2021). Similarly, MX means that the metastasis is not measurable, M0 means the cancer has not metastasized, and M1 implies that the cancer has metastasized.

Anticipate Care Outcomes

Prostate cancer is associated with some complications. One of the complications is urinary incontinence. Prostate cancer can affect the bladder and urethra to cause urine leakage and loss of bladder control. The other complication of prostate cancer is erectile dysfunction. Treatments such as radiotherapy or surgery can damage nerves that control erections.

Patients with the disease also experience problems such as painful ejaculation, which affects their overall quality of life and well-being. The other complication of prostate cancer is its spread to other body parts. Cancer cells can metastasize to adjacent and distant body organs to affect their functioning (Leslie et al., 2024).

For example, metastasis of cancer cells to the bones makes them weak and increases the risk of fractures. The cells can also metastasize to the brain to cause tumors and liver to impair normal liver functions.

Prostate cancer treatment is associated with several complications. Treatments such as radiation are associated with complications, including cystitis, rectal inflammation, narrowing of the urethra or rectum, rectal or urinary bleeding, rectal ulcers, and urinary frequency.

The other complications include nocturia, diarrhea, erectile dysfunction, and infertility (Schmid et al., 2020). Some strategies can be adopted to prevent and manage these complications. They include prescribing antidiarrheal medications, and antiemetics, encouraging frequent fluid intake orally to maintain hydration.

Psychological interventions such as mindfulness-based stress reduction, yoga, acupuncture, hypnosis, and massage therapy (Jassim et al., 2023; Liu et al., 2021). Interventions such as massage therapy help in pain management.

Incident Rates and Preventive Measures

Global statistics show that prostate cancer is the most commonly diagnosed cancer and the fifth leading cause of death in men. The global incidence of prostate cancer was 1,414, 249 and its mortality rate was 375000. Prostate cancer is the most commonly diagnosed cancer in more than 50% of the global states.

According to the American Cancer Society, about 299010 people in the United States were newly diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2024. About 35250 deaths annually are attributed to prostate cancer in the United States. In 2023, 288300 new cases of prostate cancer were diagnosed in America. The five-year relative survival rate among patients diagnosed with prostate cancer in the USA is 97.1% (cancer.gov, n.d.; cancer.org, n.d.-a; Leslie et al., 2024).

The rate of prostate cancer-related mortality between 2016 and 2020 in the United States was 113.4 per 100000 men per year.
Some strategies can be adopted to reduce the yearly morbidity and mortality rate of various cancers in America. One of the strategies is creating awareness about cancer risk, symptoms, diagnosis, and treatment in the population.

Public health campaigns to raise awareness can be implemented to address the problem. The other strategy is the provision of intensive screenings for different cancers. The screening services should be free to increase the population diagnosed with prostate cancer and initiate timely treatments.

The other strategy is eliminating barriers to access to cancer care such as cost for the population (Eusebi et al., 2020; Mao et al., 2022). Cost barriers make it difficult for the population to utilize cancer services such as screening and timely treatments.

American Cancer Society

The American Cancer Society (ACS) provides education and support for cancer patients. The support includes access to evidence-based information and resources, support groups, online communities, and financial assistance to help lower the disease burden.

Patients also benefit from navigator programs that help them access the resources they need for effective cancer management. ACS also organizes educational workshops for cancer patients and their families. The workshops equip them with the knowledge and skills related to cancer management, prevention, and resources (cancer.org, n.d.-b).

I will recommend all these services to a patient diagnosed with prostate cancer to help them develop knowledge and skills in prostate cancer management. The resources will also help them overcome the barriers encountered in prostate cancer management.

Interdisciplinary Approach

An interdisciplinary research approach, which includes liberal arts, social and physical sciences, and mathematics, builds on the foundational knowledge of cancer research. Firstly, the interdisciplinary approach enhances nurses’ understanding of cancer.

The incorporation of diverse disciplines enriches nurses’ knowledge of the different dimensions of cancer and patient experiences with the disease. Disciplines such as mathematics provide nurses with the knowledge needed to analyze the relationship between different variables in cancer research. For example, statistics can be used to determine the correlation or association between variables in cancer research.

Nurses use knowledge obtained from behavioral and social sciences to understand the human factors that influence the utilization of cancer services and human experiences with cancer (Yazdanpanah & Rezaei, 2023). Therefore, the interdisciplinary research approach is crucial in enhancing nursing knowledge of cancer research.

Utilization of Nursing Process

The nursing process can be utilized to provide safe and effective care to cancer patients. In the assessment phase, nurses obtain subjective and objective data from cancer patients to understand their actual and potential health needs.

The assessment data guides the nursing care plans that will be adopted in caring for cancer patients. Nurses use the assessment data to develop nursing diagnoses. Nursing diagnoses identify nursing issues that should be addressed based on their priority.

Nurses then plan the approach to addressing patient needs in the planning phase. Planning identifies patient goals, interventions, and outcomes that should be achieved in the care process. The next step in the nursing process is implementation.

This is where nurses put the plan into action to address patient needs. The last step is evaluation where nurses compare outcomes with those stated in the plan (Yang et al., 2022). They then make changes if the outcomes were not achieved, or develop new plans to address other needs.

Conclusion

Prostate cancer is a common malignancy in men. Different screening and diagnostic methods are used for prostate cancer. Prostate cancer is associated with complications that affect health and well-being. ACS provides support and resources to cancer patients and their families.

An interdisciplinary research approach is important in nursing research on cancer. The nursing process can be used to provide safe and effective care to cancer patients.