THE ROLE OF NURSES FOR PROMOTING NUTRITION IN CANCER PATIENTS RECEIVING CHEMOTHERAPY

Abstract

Promoting nutrition in cancer patients receiving chemotherapy can reduce the incidence of malnutrition associated with adverse effects of anticancer drugs such as mouth ulcers, nausea and vomiting, loss of appetite, and weight loss. This incidence is positively associated with the stage of cancer, origin of cancer, and treatment methods. Patients undergoing anticancer drugs present physical negative complicating as follow dead white blood cells disrupt the body’s immune system; thrombocytopenia can cause bleeding in almost any part of the body; stomatitis lead to painful mouth; and loss of appetite and taste change result in eating less, gastritis, diarrhea, and Metabolic abnormalities. Therefore, registered nurses who are important to manipulate nursing care relating to nutritional support for cancer patients undergoing anticancer treatment. These include doing health assessment by asking present and history illness, demonstrating laboratory and physical examination, and monitoring the patient’s sign and system change. As a result, patient data analysis can be used to provide nursing care in nutritional therapy for patient cancer appropriately and sufficiently. In addition, the nurse role in evaluation should be done for the multidisciplinary teams who are also involved those patients. We therefore suggest that nurses should have cognition of nutritional assessment and also focus on nutritional problems of the cancer patients receiving chemotherapy by using the nursing process to reduce the patient's’ suffering from treatment-related complications.