Abstract

Chemotherapy can be an anxiety provoking experience for women with breast cancer. Currently, chemotherapy is delivered by specialist nurses who would be well placed to deliver anxiety management techniques. The aim of this study is to conduct focus groups to explore the views of this specialist group of nurses regarding their current management strategies, and explore their attitudes and beliefs about delivering ‘psychological’ techniques to help women manage their anxiety. Furthermore, training needs will be assessed. Preliminaery analysis from four focus groups reveeaed that chemotherapy nurses have particular difficulties in working with this patient group.  In part, this is due to the high level of identification the nurses share with the patients (e.g. similar age, same gender, similar issues). The findings of this study will be used to design a larger study to assess the effectiveness of a brief nurse-led intervention using psychological techniques. This would help women manage their anxiety, modify unpleasant side effects and gain control whilst undergoing chemotherapy.  Futhermore, training will de developed to help nurses develop positive coping strstegies to help them deal with the emotional burden linked with this specialist nursing riole.