Health Communication Commons^™

The Legitimacy Of The Patient Story: The Unofficial Autoethnography, Kathy Saldana

Patient Experience Journal

While communication is the foundation of patient experience, survey data and comments are the primary source of results. The focus on data, though meaningful, reduces humans to text on reports. With a focus of autoethnography in both her baccalaureate and post-graduate studies, the author, (a fulltime patient experience professional) shares her professional focus on the value of the data and comments, esteeming it all as valuable research given by the only people who can report patient experience – patients. She compares her stance regarding patient experience before and after receiving a diagnosis of breast cancer. The author shares how the …

Being Open About Cancer: Interview With Barbara Reul, Author Of The Open-Licensed Memoirs Perfect Timing And Right On Time, James Thibeault

Library Publications

While surviving cancer is a difficult endeavor, writing a book about the whole experience and publishing it with an open license is an additional struggle. Barbara Reul, a full professor of musicology at Luther College, University of Regina in Canada, was diagnosed with endometrial cancer in 2020. After undergoing twenty-eight targeted radiation therapy treatments and six rounds of chemo (all of which also occurred during the Covid-19 pandemic), Reul is fortunately cancer-free and has written two memoirs, Perfect Timing (2021) and Right On Time (2023), which chronicle her treatment and battle with cancer.

Choosing To Thrive: An Autoethnographic Journey Of Cancer, Companionship, And Carrots, Bruce Lilyea

The Qualitative Report

In this autoethnography, I explore the companionship experience of someone supporting a cancer patient who is endeavoring to thrive in the face of this disease. A wide range of studies has been conducted on the emotional and social issues relating to cancer and specifically to breast cancer. Appropriately, most of the research relating to the personal narrative focuses on the stories of the person who has been diagnosed with cancer, and limited research has highlighted the perspective and experiences of their companions. My primary goals for this autoethnographic research are to: (1) Begin to answer the question: What role do …

Using Large Pre-Trained Language Models To Track Emotions Of Cancer Patients On Twitter, Will Baker

Computer Science and Computer Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

Twitter is a microblogging website where any user can publicly release a message, called a tweet, expressing their feelings about current events or their own lives. This candid, unfiltered feedback is valuable in the spaces of healthcare and public health communications, where it may be difficult for cancer patients to divulge personal information to healthcare teams, and randomly selected patients may decline participation in surveys about their experiences. In this thesis, BERTweet, a state-of-the-art natural language processing (NLP) model, was used to predict sentiment and emotion labels for cancer-related tweets collected in 2019 and 2020. In longitudinal plots, trends in …

The Ant Home Care Model In Palliative And End-Of-Life Care. An Investigation On Family Caregivers’ Satisfaction With The Services Provided., Veronica Zavagli

Translational Medicine @ UniSa

The World Health Organization plan for a Decade of Healthy Ageing 2020-2030 has established some priorities in the field of palliative and end-of-life care. It states that “people require non-discriminatory access to good-quality palliative and end-of-life care” and recommends the “implementation of strategies for the provision of information, training, respite and support for informal caregivers”. The priorities described are in line with the home care services that National Tumor Assistance (ANT) Foundation has been providing in Italy. This 5-years investigation was designed to measure caregivers’ satisfaction and determine what types of support services are associated with greater satisfaction. 5.441 family …

The Landscape Of Connected Cancer Symptom Management In Rural America: A Narrative Review Of Opportunities For Launching Connected Health Interventions, Ming-Yuan Chih, Anna Mccowan, Sadie Whittaker, Melinda Krakow, David K. Ahern, Eliah Aronoff-Spencer, Bradford W. Hesse, Timothy W. Mullett, Robin C. Vanderpool

Journal of Appalachian Health

Background: The 2016 President’s Cancer Panel called for projects focusing on improving cancer symptom management using connected health technologies (broadband and telecommunications). However, rural communities, like those in Appalachia, may experience a “double burden” of high cancer rates and lower rates of broadband access and adoption necessary for connected health solutions.

Purpose: To better understand the current landscape of connected health in the management of cancer symptoms in rural America.

Methods: A literature search was conducted using four academic databases (PubMed, CINAHL, MEDLINE, and PsycINFO) to locate articles published from 2010 to 2019 relevant to connected cancer symptom management in …

Hpv Vaccination In Females: The Role Of Primary Health Care And Primary Health Care Providers, Brooke Bouza

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Two reasons for subpar coverage of the Human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine are missed clinical opportunities and nonacceptance of the vaccine upon recommendation from a medical provider. The purpose of study one was to examine factors associated with access and adherence to physician’s recommendations in association with HPV vaccine uptake. Data were obtained from National Health Interview Survey (2017). Variables theoretically related to clinical opportunities and adherence to physician’s recommendations were examined in association with HPV vaccine uptake. Univariate logistic regressions were run to determine the associations between the aforementioned variables and uptake of the HPV vaccine. Multinomial logistic regressions were …

Medical Students' Experiences And Outcomes Using A Virtual Human Simulation To Improve Communication Skills: Mixed Methods Study, Timothy Guetterman, Rae Sakakibara, Srikar Baireddy, Frederick W. Kron, Mark W. Scerbo, James F. Cleary, Michael D. Fetters

Psychology Faculty Publications

Background: Attending to the wide range of communication behaviors that convey empathy is an important but often underemphasized concept to reduce errors in care, improve patient satisfaction, and improve cancer patient outcomes. A virtual human (VH)–based simulation, MPathic-VR, was developed to train health care providers in empathic communication with patients and in interprofessional settings and evaluated through a randomized controlled trial.

Objective: This mixed methods study aimed to investigate the differential effects of a VH-based simulation developed to train health care providers in empathic patient-provider and interprofessional communication.

Methods: We employed a mixed methods intervention design, involving a comparison of …

A Stress Management App Intervention For Cancer Survivors: Design, Development, And Usability Testing, Elin Børøsund, Jelena Mirkovic, Matthew M. Clark, Shawna L. Ehlers, Michael A. Andrykowski, Anne Bergland, Marianne Westeng, Lise Solberg Nes

Behavioral Science Faculty Publications

Background: Distress is prevalent in cancer survivors. Stress management interventions can reduce distress and improve quality of life for cancer patients, but many people with cancer are unfortunately not offered or able to attend such in-person stress management interventions.

Objective: The objective of this study was to develop an evidence-based stress management intervention for patients living with cancer that can be delivered electronically with wide reach and dissemination. This paper describes the design and development process of a technology-based stress management intervention for cancer survivors, including the exploration phase, intervention content development, iterative software development (including design, development, and formative …

Evaluating Family Caregivers' Memorable Messages Of Social Support In The Context Of Cancer, Alexis Johnson

Department of Communication Studies: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Caring for a loved one with cancer can be physically and emotionally difficult. Research has established that social support can improve overall mental health (Albrecht & Goldsmith, 2003; Sarason et al., 1994). To understand how caregivers make sense of the supportive messages they receive and the links between those messages and caregiver well-being (e.g. stress, depression, and affect), this study used the communicated sense-making model (CSM, Koenig Kellas & Kranstuber Horstman, 2015). Specifically, the current dissertation focuses on memorable messages, as one significant form of CSM, in order to identify the understudied nature of supportive message content and the ways …

I Know I Can: Feeling Confident About Discussing Cancer May Help Couples' Cancer Management, Kate Magsamen-Conrad, Maria K. Venetis, M. G. Checton, K. Greene

School of Media and Communication Faculty Publications

Managing chronic illness, especially something like cancer, affects more than the diagnosed person. Cancer also affects partners, families, and loved ones. In our study, we were interested in how cancer affects communication patterns between survivors and their partners. We wanted to apply a model that explains chronic illness management in couples to see if we could determine how parts of a relationship, uncertainty about cancer prognosis, and the confidence people have in talking with partners about the cancer affect couples’ ability to manage the disease.

Social Support In Young Adult Cancer Survivors And Their Close Social Network Members, Nicholas Thomas Iannarino

Theses and Dissertations--Communication

A cancer diagnosis often causes biographical disruption in the lives of young adult (i.e., 18-39; YA) survivors and their close social network members (i.e., familial, plutonic, or romantic relational partners with whom the survivor has a salient relationship; SNM). In order to integrate their illness into their lives, normatively regain balance and equilibrium, and achieve a “new normal” following a cancer diagnosis, YA survivors and their close SNMs must work to reconstruct their biographies by engaging in tangible interpersonal communication processes often used to initiate and maintain relationships. However, YA cancer survivors report facing social struggles due to the biographical …

Lives Interrupted: A Sibling’S Guide To Cancer, Robin Sweeney

Communication Studies

For my project I propose to write a handbook for teens to help them cope with the difficult challenges they may experience while having a sibling who has been diagnosed with cancer. I also hope to help them discover the positive that can happen throughout this experience. The purpose of this handbook is to help eliminate some level of uncertainty, to prepare a teen with the feelings they and their sibling will be going through, to prepare them for their different changes in roles and responsibilities in their family and friends, to show them ways to help, how to continue …

Omnibus Survivorship Narratives: Multiple Morbidities Among Female Cancer Survivors In South Central Appalachia, Kelly A. Dorgan, Kathryn L. Duvall, Sadie P. Hutson

ETSU Faculty Works

This study examines the illness narratives of female cancer survivors living in Southern Central Appalachia. Stories of 29 female Appalachian cancer survivors from northeastern Tennessee and southwcstmn Virginia were collected via a mixed methods approach in either a day-long story circle (n=26) or an in-depth interview (n=3), Qualitative content analysis was used to guide an inductive analysis of the tTanscript<;, What emerged was that as participants survived cancer, they also survived other health conditions, their intorsccting stories yielding an omnibus survivorship narrative.

Navigating Family Cancer Communication: Communication Strategies Of Female Cancer Survivors In Central Appalachia, Kathryn L. Duvall, Kelly A. Dorgan, Sadie P. Hutson

ETSU Faculty Works

In a multiphasic study, the stories of 29 female Appalachian cancer survivors were collected through either a day-long modified story circle event (n=26) or an in-depth interview (n=3). Qualitative content analysis was used to identify emergent themes in the data. The analysis revealed 5 types of family cancer communication including both pre-diagnosis and postdiagnosis cancer communication strategies

Intention To Seek Information On Cancer Genetics, James E. Andrews, J. David Johnson, Donald O. Case, Suzanne L. Allard, Kimberly Kelly

Communication Faculty Publications

Objective. The public has a high interest in seeking personal genetic information, which holds implications for health information seeking research and health care policy. Rapid advances in cancer genetics research promise early detection, prevention and treatment, yet consumers may have greater difficulty finding and using the information they may need to make informed decisions regarding their personal health and the future of their families.

Design. A statewide telephone survey was conducted of non-institutionalized Kentucky residents 18 years of age or older to investigate factors associated with the intention to seek cancer genetics information, including the need for such information seeking …