Engaging patients as partners in cancer care: An innovative strategy to implement screening for distress?

Patient distress is frequently missed in everyday cancer care, yet can be associated with decreased quality of life and satisfaction with care, as well as increased risk for comorbidity and morbidity. Considered as an aspect of a patient-centred approach, screening for distress is now an international standard of practice and constitutes an accreditation criterion for cancer centers in the USA and Canada. Inspired by existing health partnership models, the Centre Hospitalier de l'Université de Montréal's (CHUM) Integrative Cancer Care Center recruited patients to act as partners during the creation and implementation of its screening for distress program. Patient partner roles in the program included becoming a member of a specialized psychosocial oncology team, contributing to a healthcare professional training program and helping to select tools to detect distress. This paper describes why and how the CHUM cancer care centre developed an innovative screening for distress program, using a patient partnership approach, to better meet the needs of patients with cancer.

Contribution of the pivot nurse in oncology to the experience of receiving a diagnosis of cancer by the patient and their loved ones.

The announcement of a cancer diagnosis represents a difficult situation for the patient, their loved ones and professionals (Reich, Vennin & Belkacémie, 2008). Until now, few studies have described nurses' contribution to this critical moment along the care trajectory (Tobin, 2012) and even fewer, the contribution of the pivot nurse in oncology (OPN) or infirmière pivot en oncologie (PNO) as this specialist is called in Quebec. This study aims to document the OPN's contribution to the cancer experience of the patient and their loved ones, from the time the diagnosis is communicated to the period immediately following (four to six weeks). Fourteen PNOs from a Montreal university health centre took part in two individual interviews. Results show that PNOs offer personalized support which draws on their expertise to better understand the experience lived by patients and their loved ones, and adapt their interventions according to their needs and the timing of these interventions. These results support issuing three recommendations for nursing practice in the areas of PNOs; development of expertise, interprofessional collaboration and environment.