UA nursing school gets $2.5 million grant to help cancer survivors
Jun 5, 2018, 4:53 AM | Updated: Jun 21, 2018, 2:23 pm
(Twitter Photo/@UACON)
(Twitter Photo/@UACON)
PHOENIX — The University of Arizona College of Nursing received a $2.5 million grant from the National Cancer Institute to help people completing cancer treatment go from being from patients to survivors.
“Oftentimes when people are ending chemotherapy or the active phase of their treatment, it’s kind of a stressful time because you’ve been so involved in working to get the cancer cured, and now you’re transitioning into the survivorship period,” Professor Terry Badger told KTAR News 92.3 FM on Monday.
The grant will be used to study the effectiveness of two interventions for patients who have completed cancer treatment.
One is a symptom management and survivorship handbook, and the other is telephone interpersonal counseling. Both methods will be available in English or Spanish and are designed to make access as easy as possible.
“Everything we have developed is meant to be able to be gotten over the phone so that patients don’t have to worry about fighting traffic, finding transportation, getting a sitter for the kids or whatever,” Badger said.
“We’re going to do everything over the telephone so it’s really easy for them to get the information they need.”
Badger said patients completing treatment can face symptoms such as psychological and emotional distress, aches, pains and fatigue.
There also can be uncertainty as they move their medical care back to their regular doctors.
“It’s really important that poeople adopt healthy lifestyle behaviors so they can reduce the risk of cancer returning,” Badger said.
For more information about the program, call 866-218-6641 toll free.
“We’re hoping to get around 400 people to participate in this study,” she said.
KTAR News 92.3 FM’s Bob McClay contributed to this report.
