Primary Healthcare

Biography

Biography: Victoria Kabanovsky

Abstract

Background: Studies have demonstrated the benefits of using supportive telephone intervention in cancer patients. Telephone support confers significant benefits including enhanced compliance in health care and improvement in both family and patient’s wellbeing.

Aim: To provide assistance by telephone intervention to patients who may not otherwise receive psychosocial intervention, because of different factors such as geographical isolation, physical limitation and lack of comfort with face to face approach.

Method: Breast cancer patients after breast reconstruction that hospitalize in the plastic surgery unit and express their willing to take part with the telephone intervention after they get discharged home. The telephone intervention is conducted every two weeks for six months and managed by the head nurse and the social worker of the unit. The project started on May 2017 with 20 breast cancer patients in order to make needs assessment after discharge from the hospital and help them with any existing problem related to their health.

Result: The participants indicate that the telephone intervention assists them in symptom management and they feel safe by knowing that there is a reference to any health problem. Till now we found that the subjects that were most discussed in the telephone intervention were about managing stress, family issues, medical problems, referrals to community services and need of psychological help.

Conclusion: Telephone intervention was likely to be well accepted by the patients. All of them evaluated the intervention positively and thought that the intervention is very helpful in learning how to manage their recovery and all of them express a request to continue this intervention.