Congress Abstracts 2006

74

THE USE OF A TOOL TO ASSESS SYMPTOMS IN NON ENGLISH SPEAKING PATIENTS. Susan Robertson, RN, MS, OCN^®, and Elaine Heywood, Royal Free Hampstead Trust, London, England.

In the palliative care team many referrals are received for expert advice in controlling patients' symptoms of pain and nausea at various stages of their journey with cancer. These patients come from a vast number of ethnic origins and many do not speak English. As the majority of health professionals in this institution only speak English caring for and assessing these patients without the use of an interpreter can be very problematic. This is especially true when seeing a patient after commencing a protocol for symptom management and questioning efficiency. Many patients risk ineffective titration of drugs secondary to a language barrier. This creates frustration for the patients, their family as well as the nursing staff.

To facilitate better communication and optimal care in a large culturally diverse patient population and to allow nurses to better use evidence based skills to titrate medications, suggest additional treatment and to refer those patients that needed counseling and further interpreter services.

An assessment tool consisting of 15 questions pertinent to pain, nausea, vomiting, eating, sleeping and depression were translated onto a form using yes/no answers. This tool could be used daily for ongoing assessment of the effectiveness of interventions used. Nurses felt comfortable in knowing outcomes to create their daily care plan and to communicate their findings to the multidisciplinary team. The patient was given the form with a pencil to circle the yes/no answers. The form had the English translation below each question so enabling the nurse to clearly understand the patient's response.

Patients were able to achieve better symptom management as it allowed better titration and optimalization of analgesia and other pertinent medications. Patients and families felt more empowered with their care, as it is very difficult being cared for by someone that doesn't speak the same language. Nurses voiced increased confidence in their skills and care and communicated with other team members their satisfaction.

The implications of delivering the optimal care is vital to the core of oncology nursing and the use of a simple tool that can be used as often as necessary to assess the patients symptoms to deliver this care has proved invaluable.