Chapter 6: Coping with Common Concerns
Overview:
- Defines and explores both ‘adjustment’ and ‘adjustment disorders’
- Guidance on how to tailor a package of interventions for adjustment difficulties, depending upon the results of a psychosocial assessment
- Types of skills and coping mechanisms are provided clear and comprehensive tables
- Discussion of concerns for patients and guidance on how best to support them
Description:
This chapter emphasises how health professionals can use many straight forward but effective strategies to help cancer patients and their families manage common concerns. Guidance is given through clear and comprehensive tables, case studies and resource sheets to ensure optimum support for all is achieved.
Topics:
- Adjustment and 'adjustment disorders'
- Intervention strategies
- Encouraging adaptive coping
- Emotional regulation
- Managing uncertainty
- Fatigue
- Sleep difficulties
- Nausea
- Familial cancer concerns
- The use of complementary and alternative medicine
- Fertility concerns
- Pain management
- Existential and spiritual concerns
- Putting it all together
- Resources for health professionals and for patients
- References
- Resource sheet 6.1 Maintaining health and wellbeing
- Resource sheet 6.2 Goal setting and problem solving
- Resource sheet 6.3 Getting a good night's sleep
- Resource sheet 6.4 Dealing with hair loss
- Resource sheet 6.5 Returning to work
Speaker / Author:
Dr Catherine Adams
Catherine is a senior clinical psychologist in a psycho-oncology service providing out-patient care to patients of a tertiary oncology service in a major regional teaching hospital. She established the clinical arm of this service in 2001 to provide structured interventions to oncology/haematology patients. Catherine has two appointments to the University of Newcastle. As a conjoint senior lecturer in psychology she provides lectures to, and supervision of, post-graduate clinical and health psychology students. As a conjoint teaching fellow in medicine and public health, she provides lectures to, and supervision of, fifth year medical students in managing anxiety and depression in the oncology population and supervises psychiatry registrars.
Catherine has published in the areas of stress management, screening for psychosocial distress and distress in carers of people with cancer. She is currently developing a group intervention for people recently diagnosed with cancer aimed at reducing levels of traumatic stress for these people and their carers.
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