Luciana Murru - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Papers by Luciana Murru

Transplantation, May 1, 2002

Background. There is little knowledge of the psychological and social conditions of candidates fo... more Background. There is little knowledge of the psychological and social conditions of candidates for liver transplantation and the meaning that these patients attribute to those conditions. Methods. The research has been conducted with quantitative and qualitative methods. For the quantitative study, 80 patients were assessed with four evaluation instruments: the Interdisciplinary Group for Cancer Care Evaluation in Italy (GIVIO) questionnaire for quality of life, the Needs Evaluation Questionnaire (NEQ) for psychosocial needs, the Minnesota

Research Square (Research Square), Sep 23, 2022

Background. "Ariadne's thread" is a psycho-educational intervention designed by the Clinical Psyc... more Background. "Ariadne's thread" is a psycho-educational intervention designed by the Clinical Psychology Unit of an Italian Comprehensive Cancer Center and aimed at promoting empowerment in patients with metastatic breast cancer. It consists of 8 online meetings led by a psycho-oncologist where informational parts discussed by all the doctors that care these patients alternate with moments of stress management. Aim. This case study aims to investigate: 1) the feasibility of the "Ariadne's thread" intervention; 2) the satisfaction and perception of e cacy of the pilot intervention by the participants. Method. We used a mixed method in which 1) it was detected: the number of acceptance to the intervention both of patients and professionals, the number of help requests by patients and the number of requests of date changing by the professionals; 2) semi-structured interviews to the professionals who participated at the intervention were conducted; 3) 2 focus groups with the patients were conducted and a questionnaire was submitted to each of them. Results. The intervention is sustainable for the organisation, professionals and patients point of view. In particular, the patients declare the perception of e cacy in many aspects: improvement of the relation with the doctors, acceptance of their illness, learning of a relaxing technique, possibility to look at the world with trust and hope, etc. The questionnaires show an improvement of empowerment and the satisfaction with the intervention. Conclusion. Even though other research are needed, the results are promising. majority of women with MBC that today live in Italy (about 37.000) have shown a recurrence of the disease after a treatment for an initial form of breast cancer (1). The clinical progression pattern of MBC is heterogeneous and patients can experience acute and stable phases at different time points (2). In Italy 30% of women with MBC is alive after 5 years from diagnosis. However, statistics change according to the number and the location of metastasis, to the molecular subtypes of cancer, to the age, to the presence of potential genetic mutations, to the course of treatment. The range of survival varies from less of a year to over 20 years (3). For this reason, the women with MBC will likely experience continuous uncertainty about their health and longevity (4). The treatment aims to extend survival, control symptoms and improve or maintain the patient's quality of life (QoL). Treatment often continues until the cancer starts growing again or until secondary effects become unacceptable. If this happens, other drugs might be tried (5). Anxiety, depression, loneliness, uncertainty about the future and a pervasive sense of limited time are common in these patients (6)(4)(7) (4). Recently, the literature has focused on the unmet needs of women with MBC, although contributions are still few. Research agrees that there is a lack of health information, especially in relation to treatments and prognosis; patients ask for psychological support, especially in groups; physical needs related to daily life also emerge (8)(9)(10)(11)(12)(4). A recent study conducted whit MBC women at the Fondazione IRCCS Istituto Nazionale dei Tumori in Milan (INT) (8) identi ed the following unmet needs: 1) the need for clinical recognition, because this phase of the disease-even more than in the earlier stages-implies greater vulnerability, limitations in daily life, frequency of exams and duration of therapy; 2) the need for more attention by healthcare professionals: i.e. improving coordination between professionals, improving the quality and quantity of information, using empathy, not seeing the person only as a patient, being careful when communicating the diagnosis; 3) the need for more and better services to be available at the hospital: i.e. decreasing waiting times, creating recreational facilities, having a space for children, having a coordinating gure, doing all the exams in the hospital, possibility of having a psychological support and a social service, possibility of peer and group support meetings; 4) the need for speci c public health policies: i.e. support in knowledge of labor rights, more research into BMC. Not only the number of studies on the needs of MBC patients is limited, but also structured interventions that meet such needs are unknown. In the literature there are psychological (i.e. psychological support, psychotherapy, etc.), expressive (i.e. writing) or relaxing (i.e. yoga, mindfulness) interventions for patients with MBC (13)(14)(15). Although effective, nevertheless they only partially meet the multiplicity and complexity of the needs expressed by the patients.

BMC Psychology

Background Despite the numerous tools built ad hoc to investigate the effects of the CoViD-19 pan... more Background Despite the numerous tools built ad hoc to investigate the effects of the CoViD-19 pandemic on people, to date there are no known questionnaires that investigate the emotional experiences of cancer patients. This work aims to start a process of construction and validation of a tool that captures these aspects (Pandemic Emotions Questionnaire in Cancer Patients—PEQ-CP). Method A mixed method approach was used through three phases, each on a different sample: Phase 1: creation of items and checking of internal validity, through unstructured interviews and verification of the validity of content by "peers" and "experts"; Phase 2: exploration of the factorial structure of the scale through an exploratory factor analysis (EFA); Phase 3: confirmation of the factorial structure of the scale through a confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). Results Phase 1 revealed 26 items that can be grouped into 4 theoretical dimensions. "Peers" and "experts&quot...

Tumori Journal, 1986

A survey was conducted on 84 patients who chose to have breast reconstruction after mastectomy. A... more A survey was conducted on 84 patients who chose to have breast reconstruction after mastectomy. A self-rating questionnaire was sent to each patient by mail to collect as much information about the patient as possible: individual status, reasons for requesting breast reconstruction, acceptance and advantages of having the new breast, satisfaction with the overall esthetic results, amount of patient information regarding breast reconstruction, and the source of this information. Once the questionnaire was completely filled out, it was returned by mail to the persons conducting this study. Fourty-three patients (51% of sample) replied with a completed questionnaire. When all the data for this survey were collected, an interesting factor emerged: 33 patients (76.7% of those who replied) reported being substantially satisfied with the esthetic results of their operation. When asked about the reasons for requesting breast reconstruction, 16 patients asserted their request was based on th...

Annals of Oncology, 2000

Background: Cancer disease modifies the order and the nature of needs connected with the state of... more Background: Cancer disease modifies the order and the nature of needs connected with the state of health. The aim of this study was to evaluate the informative, psychological, social and practical needs of hospitalised cancer patients by means of the Needs Evaluation Questionnaire (NEQ), an instrument designed concisely for the convenience of patients and medical staff. Patients and methods: Different samples of consecutive hospitalised cancer patients were involved in the various phases of designing the instrument: 30 patients for items identification, 101 patients for completeness and acceptability evaluation, 423 patients for construct validity and prevalence of needs; content and reliability analysis were performed on 2 subsamples of, respectively, 60 and 88 of the patients from the last sample. Results: The validation analysis showed rather good reliability , structure validity and internal consistency of the questionnaire. The prevalence analysis showed that the most common needs were: 'more information about my future conditions' (74%); 'more information about my diagnosis' (56%); 'more information about the exams I am undergoing' (52%); 'more explanations on treatments' (51%); 'to have a better dialogue with clinicians' (57%); 'better services from the hospital' (bathrooms, meals, cleaning) (56%). Conclusions: The NEQ, self-completed by patients, has proven to be a useful clinical tool for obtaining a systematic and undistorted overview of the principal needs with respect to the state of health of patients. This instrument, which can also be administered by persons not belonging to the health care system such as volunteers, and inserted into the patients' hospital charts, could be used by the medical staff to identify the real needs of patients at an early stage.

European Journal of Cancer, 1997

European Journal of Cancer, 2001

Transplantation, 2002