Pro-self - a Nursing Intervention to Support and Educate Cancer Patients and Their Caregivers so That the Patient Can Stay Home

The undertreatment of cancer pain remains a significant clinical problem. The PRO-SELF Pain Control Program is a 6 week psychoeducational intervention that was shown to improve pain management in oncology outpatients with pain from bone metastasis. However, this promising intervention requires replication in samples of oncology patients with cancer pain outside of the United States.

The purpose of the study was to test the effectiveness of The PRO-SELF Pain Control Program in Norwegian cancer patients and their family caregivers. Only data on patient outcomes will be presented.

The theoretical framework for this study incorporated elements of Orem's self-care theory, as well as the principles of academic detailing and nurse coaching to change patients' self-care behaviors regarding cancer pain management.

Two hundred adult cancer patients with pain from skeletal metastasis and their caregivers participated in this study. Patients were randomized to either the PRO-SELF program or standard care. Patients completed questionnaires about pain, physical functioning, quality of life, anxiety, and depression at the time of enrollment and after 6 weeks. Data on analgesics were collected through chart reviews and patient diaries. Both groups received home visits and telephone calls by an oncology nurse over a period of six weeks. Participants in the intervention group received education about pain management and were coached to improve their pain management behaviors. Two-way repeated measures analyses of variance will be done to determine differences in pain intensity scores and to evaluate the differences over time in the total amount of opioid analgesics taken by the patients.