Nursing care of a patient diagnosed with malignant breast cancer during chemotherapy using ICNP® terminology

Introduction. Oncology nursing as a specialized field ought to develop a range of standards that will increase the quality of patient care. The indispensable ability of a nurse is to create patient-specific diagnoses that holistically describe the biopsychosocial status of the care focus.

Aim. The proposal to use the ICNP^® classification in the process of nursing a patient with malignant breast cancer during chemotherapy.

Material and methods. The case study method was used in the paper. The research techniques used in the work include an interview, nursing observation, measurement, documentation analysis. The tools include a sheet for collecting patient data, the Acceptance of Illness Scale (AIS), Nutritional Risk Score questionnaire (NRS), scale of judgement of the occurrence of chemotherapy side effects, dyspnoea assessment, nausea assessment, fall rating as well as the Scale of nausea and vomiting judgement according to WHO criteria.

Results. After the interview, the biopsychosocial status of the patient was assessed. Using the obtained empirical data, nursing diagnoses were made using the ICNP^® reference terminology. The focus of care, nursing interventions, means / tools and the result of care were listed using phrases from the existing ICNP^® catalogs.

Conclusions. Using the International Classification of Nurses’ Diagnosis ICNP® in the context of caring for a patient diagnosed with breast cancer allows to identify nursing problems such as: lymph edema, diarrhea, anxiety, exercise dyspnea, vomiting, concern about body image, risk of falling.