Pediatric oncology nurses' management of patients' symptoms.
The purpose of this article is to describe the results of a national descriptive survey of 509 pediatric oncology nurses' interventions for managing patients'symptoms. The Nurses' Distress and Interventions for Symptoms Survey (NDISS) is used to assess nurses' management of patients' 7 most distressing symptoms. The average number of symptoms reported as being present is 6.0 (SD 1.3; range, 0-7). Pain is the most commonly reported symptom; trouble sleeping is the least common. The mean score for nurses' distress is 2.9 (SD 0.8; range, 0-4); nurses' distress is greatest with trouble sleeping and lowest with hair loss. Nurses use an average of 12.7 interventions to treat each symptom; pain has the greatest number of interventions to treat and hair loss the least. The average perceived effectiveness of interventions across symptoms is 2.5 (SD 0.5; range, 0-4). Pain is perceived as the most effectively treated symptom; fatigue is the least.