Kudos to PhD student Eunji Cho and her sponsor Sharron Docherty for the submission of her American Nurse’s Foundation/Sigma Theta Tau International (STTI) application entitled "Pediatric Oncology Nurse-Patient Dyadic Storytelling Intervention for Adolescents with Cancer: Development and Implementation." This proposal requests funds for a one-year period with a start date of Oct. 1, 2018.

Subject Population: Adolescents with cancer must confront the unique developmental tasks of their age group at the same time as dealing with a range of challenges related to cancer. Pediatric oncology nurses spend a significant amount of time with these adolescents and create strong relationships; however, taking care of adolescents with cancer often place pediatric oncology nurses at risk of compassion fatigue as well. 

Research Design: This study is to (1) develop a nurse-patient dyadic storytelling intervention for promoting positive development and human flourishing in adolescents with cancer and work satisfaction (compassion fatigue and compassion satisfaction) in pediatric oncology nurses, and to (2) test its feasibility and acceptability. A pediatric oncology nurse-led storytelling intervention will be developed and a small pilot study will be followed with 10 nurse-adolescent cancer patient dyads.

Instrument: Participants will be asked to complete the following tools pre/post/3-month post-intervention: (1) adolescents: Haase Adolescent Resilience in Illness Scale, PROMIS measure, Reed Self-Transcendence scale, and Post-Traumatic Growth Inventory-X; (2) nurses: Professional Quality of Life Scale; and (3) both: individual interviews.

Procedure: After the development of the provisional model, nurses will be trained by a storyteller and lead a 5-session storytelling intervention with adolescents with cancer for three months.