Background
Due to the chronic nature of multiple sclerosis, palliative care can play a significant role in improving the quality of life and well-being of the affected patients. An essential step for developing appropriate palliative care for these patients is to determine the types of palliative care necessary, from different points of view. Therefore, this study was conducted to compare the palliative care needs from the nurses’ and patients’ points of view in southeast Iran in 2017.
Method
This descriptive-analytical cross-sectional study was conducted on 154 nurses working in neurology wards of teaching hospitals associated with Kerman University of Medical Sciences and 132 patients with multiple sclerosis who were referred to these hospitals in southeast Iran. The data were collected using a questionnaire for assessing the palliative care needs of patients with multiple sclerosis. Pearson correlation coefficient, independent t-test, ANOVA, chi-square, and the Mann-Whitney and Kruskal-Wallis tests were used to examine the data.
Results
Both nurses and patients mentioned the palliative needs of patients with multiple sclerosis in terms of physical, social, spiritual, psychological, and economic dimensions, respectively, but the results showed that there was a significant difference between the two groups in all dimensions of palliative needs (P < 0.0001).
Conclusion
Given the differences in how patients and nurses prioritize palliative care needs, it is essential to consider the different dimensions of palliative needs of patients with multiple sclerosis.
Background: Breast cancer is the most common cancer among women worldwide and 14.2% of deaths in Iranian women were due to breast cancer. Objectives: The present study aimed at investigating the survival of females with breast cancer diagnosed over 14 years and its related factors in Kerman Province. Methods: This is a longitudinal study. Information about 2851 females diagnosed with breast cancer was inquired from the Cancer Registry of Kerman University of Medical Sciences from March 2001 to March 2015. Data analysis was performed by Stata 14 and SPSS 22. Results: Totally, 8511 women diagnosed with breast cancer were enrolled in this study. The median survival time among patients with grade 3 at diagnosis was 0.51 of patients with grade 1 (P = 0.016). The median survival time among patients with stage 4 at diagnosis was 0.11 of patients with stages 0 and 1 (P < 0.001). The median survival time among post-menopause patients at diagnosis was 0.65 of pre-menopause patients (P = 0.014). The median survival time among patients with secondary metastasis was 0.22 of patients without it (P < 0.001) and the median survival time among patients with hormonotherapy was 1.52 of patients without this treatment (P = 0.013). Conclusions: Early diagnosis can improve the survival of patients with breast cancer. Periodic checkups especially in menopause ages are recommended. Hormone therapy has been successful in increasing patients’ survival.
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