Psychosocial support, nursing challenges and collaborative research in cancer

Many individuals have described a diagnosis of cancer as devastating, producing a more alarming response than that of any other disease process. Newly diagnosed patients find themselves thrust on a journey that disorganizes their daily function. Many others are surrounded with much fear, uncertainties, compounded by challenging treatment regimens. All these are often compounded by changes in quality of life and social relationships; and loss of a sense of control. Despite that cancer care today provides innovative biomedical treatments, many times these fail to address the psychological and social problems associated with the illness. This failure can compromise the effectiveness of health care and thereby adversely affect the health of cancer patients and cause additional suffering, weaken adherence to prescribed treatments, and threaten patients' return to health. Nurses are professionally poised to bridge this gap and that is the thrust of this paper. This however is not without its own challenges. In addition, the paper synthesizes and explores possible areas of research collaboration in cancer care.