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Purpose: Cancer rehabilitation guidelines emphasise the importance of providing individualised support to meet each patient's unique needs. Contact nurses have an essential role in providing such support. This study aims to explore contact nurses' experiences of supporting patients after cancer treatment.

Method: This descriptive qualitative study was undertaken between February 2022 and January 2024. Semi-structured individual interviews were conducted with 12 contact nurses who were purposively recruited from seven hospitals in northern Sweden. Data were analysed using qualitative content analysis with an inductive approach.

Results: Three themes were revealed. Providing a sense of stability was achieved through creating order despite chaos, always being reachable and giving information to reassure patients. Creating trustful relationships involved being a confidant who assisted patients to cope and acknowledged their challenged existence. Navigating within limitations meant that contact nurses provided support while dealing with the unknown and facing their own inadequacy. The results highlight the ways that contact nurses support patients' self-management and well-being after curative cancer treatment.

Conclusion: Contact nurses experienced that patients had multifaceted physical, psychosocial and relational needs following cancer treatment. They described their role as inherently solitary and struggled to uphold care ideals while lacking support themselves. It was challenging to provide person-centred support when patient needs were not clearly identified or expressed, or when the required support was beyond the contact nurses' scope of practice. The contact nurse role was extensive but lacked clarity regarding how it could be optimised to best support patients following cancer treatment.

Thriving is a scarcely researched topic in nursing sciences. The present study aimed to explore how older persons experience thriving in care homes as assessed by staff and which demographic characteristics and central interRAI scale factors are associated with thriving. The thriving of 145 residents in four public care homes was measured using the short-form Thriving of Older People Assessment Scale (TOPAS). Both enrolled and registered nurses participated in this study. The data were collected in October to November 2022. Descriptive statistics and logistic regression analyses were performed. Resident thriving was assessed by staff as high. The interRAI scale factor of social engagement showed the strongest association with thriving, followed by gender (female). More attention should be focused on social engagement for care home residents and on the male residents’ thriving. The manuscript was guided by the STROBE checklist.

Background: Cancer’s rising incidence and growing survivor population underscore the need for strategies to enhance health and quality of life. Outdoor physical activity (PA) settings may provide unique benefits, yet evidence in this context is scarce. This systematic review aims to evaluate the impact of outdoor PA and exercise interventions on the health and well-being of cancer survivors.

Methods: A systematic search was conducted in PubMed, Web of Science, and PsycINFO databases from their inception until April 23, 2024. Studies included randomized controlled trials (RCTs) and non-RCTs involving outdoor PA or exercise interventions for cancer survivors. The search strategy adhered to PRISMA guidelines, and the quality of studies was assessed using the PEDro scale.

Results: Twelve studies involving 712 cancer survivors were included, comprising 7 RCTs and 5 non-RCTs. Four studies compared outdoor exercise to indoor exercise instead of a usual care control group, and one used a crossover design. The interventions varied in frequency, intensity, time, and type, with Nordic walking and walking being the most common. Key findings indicated significant improvements in mental health, PA levels, muscular fitness, body composition, and exercise motivation. However, the impact on vital signs and sleep quality was inconclusive due to the limited number of studies and variability in interventions.

Conclusions: Outdoor PA, including structured exercise interventions, substantially benefits cancer survivors, particularly in enhancing mental health and physical fitness. Despite the promising findings, further research is needed to explore long-term effects, the benefits for different cancer types and age groups, and the underlying mechanisms of these interventions. Health practitioners should consider incorporating outdoor activities into cancer rehabilitation programs.

Millions of older people are living in extrem poverty around the world. Experience suggests that such groups of people often respond with silence in research to express their social position and lived experience of impoverishment, vulnerability, oppression, and marginalization. However, understanding the eloquence that exists within the expression of silence is an empirically neglected phenomenon in scientific research, especially in studies that engage vulnerable older adults. This article, with support from practical experience and example interviews, leans towards a decolonial position that older people living in extreme poverty form a subaltern subclass who may express their lived experience using episodes of silence. The silence of vulnerable older people in research hints at a possible explanation for their silence in politics and policy discourse. Thus, it is crucial to consider silence as an empirical and primary text to illuminate perspectives of ageing within the lived context of poverty. This article intends to inspire methodological discussion as a step towards formulating strategies to empirically address silence in qualitative research involving vulnerable older adults living in poverty.

Aim: To explore how staff promote resident thriving in an Australian nursing home.

Design: Qualitative research design using content analysis.

Methods: Interviews were held with 14 nursing staff working in an Australian nursing home in March/April 2018. Data were analysed using qualitative content analysis.

Results: Four themes were revealed: promoting personalized care; promoting opportunities for autonomy; promoting connection and meaning; and promoting a curated environment.

Conclusions: Staff promoted resident thriving in relation to everyday care, activities, capabilities, relationships and the lived environment. Interventions that were perceived to promote thriving were described relative to the nurse, the resident, the care team and the wider nursing home context.

This study examines a Mixed Reality (MR) simulation aiming to train first responders for mass casualty incidents (MCIs). The focus is on how trainees and instructors use workarounds to address uncertainties, and technical glitches during the simulation. Advancements in MR offer new approaches to MCI training, either replacing or complementing traditional methods. Using observations, audio and video recordings, and interviews, we analysed interactions through Goffman's concepts of ‘frame,’ ‘footing,’ and ‘rules of irrelevance. Findings show that participants in this MR simulation use a range of workarounds, to deal with glitches that arise in the training system and uphold the simulation, bridging gaps between real-world tasks and the MR simulation. Workarounds can be understood through the participants' framings of the situation, and how they shifted footings and frames. Findings demonstrated the importance of considering which representation from real-world work practices needs to be included in the simulation to ensure workarounds do not hinder the intended learning objectives. To mitigate this risk, organisers, instructors, and trainees must develop and deepen their competencies and understanding of the pedagogical underpinnings of simulation practice. These insights underscore the importance of viewing MR simulations as distinct practices with their own logic and conditions.

Objective: The aim of this study was to translate, culturally adapt, and validate the Swedish Thanatophobia Scale.

Methods: Forward and back translation, cultural adaptation, content validation, and psychometric testing were undertaken through interviews with experts and surveying of healthcare professionals.

Results: The results from expert ratings (n = 7) for the Item Content Validity Index were calculated for scale understandability (mean, 0.90), clarity (mean, 0.91), sensitivity (mean, 0.94), and relevance (mean, 0.96). Interviews (n = 10) confirmed the importance of the scale questions and subject matter. The scale was tested among a sample of 386 participants (physicians = 104; registered nurses = 282). No significant differences were found between ratings from physicians and registered nurses. Exploratory Factor Analysis supported the unidimensionality of the scale. The Cronbach's alpha for the total scale was 0.89, indicating good internal consistency.

Conclusions: The Swedish Thanatophobia Scale appears to be a valid and reliable measure of healthcare professionals’ attitudes toward caring for patients in palliative care.

Objective: The Serious Illness Care Program was developed to support goals and values discussions between seriously ill patients and their clinicians. The core competencies, that is, the essential clinical conversation skills that are described as requisite for effective serious illness conversations (SICs) in practice, have not yet been explicated. This integrative systematic review aimed to identify core competencies for SICs in the context of the Serious Illness Care Program. 

Methods: Articles published between January 2014 and March 2023 were identified in MEDLINE, PsycINFO, CINAHL, and PubMed databases. In total, 313 records underwent title and abstract screening, and 96 full-text articles were assessed for eligibility. The articles were critically appraised using the Joanna Briggs Institute Critical Appraisal Guidelines, and data were analyzed using thematic synthesis.

Results: In total, 53 articles were included. Clinicians' core competencies for SICs were described in 3 themes: conversation resources, intrapersonal capabilities, and interpersonal capabilities. Conversation resources included using the conversation guide as a tool, together with applying appropriate communication skills to support better communication. Intrapersonal capabilities included calibrating one's own attitudes and mindset as well as confidence and self-assurance to engage in SICs. Interpersonal capabilities focused on the clinician's ability to interact with patients and family members to foster a mutually trusting relationship, including empathetic communication with attention and adherence to patient and family members views, goals, needs, and preferences.

Conclusions: Clinicians need to efficiently combine conversation resources with intrapersonal and interpersonal skills to successfully conduct and interact in SICs.

Background: Sleep disorders are often complained by cancer patients and can last years after the end of therapies, leading to different negative consequences. Non-pharmacological strategies such as exercise interventions may be considered to counteract this phenomenon. The literature supports the beneficial effects of aerobic training (AT), while evidence on resistance training (RT) is scarce. Accordingly, our systematic review aims to investigate the potential novel effect of RT on sleep outcomes in cancer survivors.

Methods: The literature search was conducted on MEDLINE (Pubmed), Web of Science, Scopus, and Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials databases, including only randomized controlled trials (RCTs). The screening procedure was conducted using the web-based software COVIDENCE. Sleep outcomes assessed through self-reported questionnaires or objective sleep measurements were extracted from RCTs recruiting cancer survivors of any age and gender, on or off treatment. The risk of bias (RoB) for each study was assessed using the Cochrane RoB 2 tool for RCTs. Meta-analytic syntheses were performed on sleep quality and insomnia.

Results: A total of 21 studies were included in the review. Considering the mean percentage differences of all studies combined, promising positive results were found after combined aerobic and resistance exercise program (COMB) for sleep quality (−19%) and sleep disturbance (−17.3%). The meta-analysis results showed significant improvement for both sleep quality and insomnia (d = 0.28, SE: 0.11, Z = 2.51, p < 0.01, 95% CI: 0.07–0.49 and d = 0.43, SE: 0.20, Z = 2.18, p = 0.029, 95% CI: 0.07–0.49, respectively).

Conclusion: RT interventions of 60 minutes per session, performed 2–3 times a week for 12 weeks, with exercise intensity ranging from 60% to 80% of one-repetition maximum can be administered to cancer survivors, aiming to improve sleep outcomes.

This narrative review aimed to identify young cancer survivors’ behaviours, experiences, and perspectives concerning physical activity, and identify useful strategies for promoting a healthy lifestyle. A manual search on the following databases was conducted: PubMed, Scopus, and Web of Science. The search was conducted between June 1, 2023, and April 12, 2024. Articles published from database inception up to April 12, 2024, were retrieved. Articles published in any language were considered. Perspectives including ideas, perceived barriers, and facilitators have been identified. Young cancer survivors seem to engage in physical activity as a useful coping strategy to regain normality and keep healthy after the cancer diagnosis. Although emotional and social support seems fundamental to increase participation, several other factors, including physical limitations, fatigue, sex, cancer type, and socio-economic status can influence physical activity participation. For those engaged in physical activity, the preferred activities are walking, biking, going to the gym, and exercising at home, while the least preferred are exercising at the hospital or boot camp-based exercises. Yoga is more frequently chosen by those still under treatment. Young cancer survivors appear to have unique needs different from those of adult cancer survivors. Mode of treatment delivery, increased awareness concerning the effects of physical activity, including families and friends, connecting survivors, and providing social support together with increasing motivation are key strategies for the promotion of physical activity in young cancer survivors. Fitness and healthcare professionals should consider these aspects to increase young cancer survivors' involvement in physical activities.