Mother-child dyad support needs to be expressed by mothers diagnosed with breast cancer.

AIMS AND OBJECTIVES: To investigate the support needs identified by Taiwanese breast cancer diagnosed mothers for themselves and their 6-12-year-old children for implementation in a support group. BACKGROUND: Mothers with dependent children are burdened with diverse child-centered concerns while battling breast cancer. A better understanding of the concomitant support needs of mothers and their children can yield tailored support for ill mothers and their children. DESIGN: A qualitative descriptive study employing content analysis of collected data. METHODS: Between February and June of 2020, semi-structured individual interviews were conducted with 20 mothers who had been diagnosed with breast cancer in the last 2 years. Qualitative content analysis was used. This study followed the COREQ guidelines. RESULTS: Ill mothers favoured a hybrid format for support groups, consisting of mother-only, child-only, and mother-child group sessions. The content analysis yielded four themes for mother-only group sessions: (1) learning to reach out to children; (2) dealing with negative emotions; (3) how to say goodbye to children; and (4) resetting for the future. Three themes related to child-only group sessions emerged: (1) emotional and health education; (2) getting along with a sick mother; and (3) preparing for uncertainty. The core theme for mother-child group sessions was relationship enhancement. CONCLUSION: The findings revealed that mother-reported support needs of ill mothers and their children included support for improving children's emotional well-being and mothers' emotional coping, preparing for uncertainty, and promoting intimacy in the mother-child relationship. RELEVANCE TO CLINICAL PRACTICE: A relation-focused approach to psychosocial support group development that allows mother-child mutual influences on each other's coping to be addressed bilaterally is suggested. PATIENT OR PUBLIC CONTRIBUTION: Mothers diagnosed with breast cancer were interviewed for data collection and invited to review and validate the synthesised data for enhancing the credibility of the study.

Uncovering the protective mechanism of Huoxue Anxin Recipe against coronary heart disease by network analysis and experimental validation.

Coronary heart disease (CHD) is a leading cause of death and disability worldwide. Huoxue Anxin Recipe (HAR) is a novel Chinese Herbal Medicine formula of that has been used to treat CHD for several decades. Our previous study found that HAR had anti-oxidative effects, and could promote myocardial angiogenesis and improve cardiac function following myocardial infarction (MI) in rats. However, the active compounds, potential targets, and biological processes related to HAR have not been systematically investigated. Here, network pharmacology and experimental validation were used to study the protective mechanisms of HAR against CHD. We identified 124 active components, 124 verified targets, and 111 predictive targets. A total of 1192 genes related to CHD were identified by cDNA microarray and database analysis. A total of 47 putative targets of HAR against CHD were identified, including 32 verified targets and 15 predictive targets. ClueGo enrichment analysis identified 49 biological processes involved in the anti-CHD effects of HAR. Among them, the negative regulation of blood coagulation and regulation of collagen biosynthetic process were experimentally validated. After constructing a protein-protein interaction network and clustering with MECODE and ClusterONE, 162 key proteins (from ClueGo and clustering) were used to construct an internal interaction network. Complement C3 (C3), Fibrinogen alpha (FGA), Fibrinogen gamma (FGG), interleukin-6 (IL6), and Apolipoprotein A1 (APOA1) were the top 5 hub proteins identified by cytoHubber analysis. HAR limited the concentrations of C3, FGA, FGG, and IL6 and increased APOA1 levels. The results indicated that HAR could down-regulate blood coagulation, regulate collagen biosynthesis, inhibit peroxidation and inflammation injury, and promote cholesterol efflux. HAR could be a potential source of novel and effective drugs for CHD.