Supportive Care in Cancer

, Volume 18, Issue 6, pp 765–770 | Cite as

Patients’ experience of oxygen therapy and dyspnea: a qualitative study in home palliative care

  • Darin Jaturapatporn
  • Erica Moran
  • Chris Obwanga
  • Amna Husain
Short Communication
First Online:
Received:
Accepted:

Abstract

Background

Dyspnea is a common and distressing symptom in advanced cancer patients. Our preliminary work shows that in the home palliative care population sampled for this study, the prevalence of dyspnea is 29.5% and of those, 26.2% used oxygen therapy. Previous studies suggested that oxygen therapy can be a burden to patients.

Purpose

This study seeks to report the prevalence and describe the experience of dyspnea, pattern of oxygen use, and patients’ perceived benefits and/or burdens of oxygen therapy in home palliative care patients receiving oxygen therapy.

Methods

Qualitative in-depth interviews, using an interview guide, were conducted with eight participants in their homes. Thematic analysis was performed using a framework approach.

Results

All patients in this project used oxygen most of the time. The descriptions of shortness of breath varied and were nonspecific. The patients identified more advantages than disadvantages. The advantages of oxygen use included increased functional capacity, patients’ perceiving oxygen as a life-saving intervention, as well as a symptom-management tool. The identified disadvantages were decreased mobility, discomfort related to the nasal prongs, barriers to accessing oxygen therapy and noise related to the equipment.

Conclusion

The advantages of oxygen usage outweighed the disadvantages for this sample of patients in the home palliative setting.

Keywords

Dyspnea Shortness of breath Oxygen therapy Qualitative study 
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Notes

Acknowledgement

We would like to thank Karen Turcotte, Claire Dyason, Michelle Beck, and Curtis Van Doormaal for their contribution to this project. This work was funded through the Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto, the Temmy Latner Centre for Palliative Care, and the Rose and Arthur Brooks Memorial Fund.

Competing interests

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Author’s contribution

DJ participated in the design of the study and performed thematic analysis. EM participated in the design of the study and interviewed patients. CO checked transcription report and performed thematic analysis. AH participated in the design of the study, supervised DJ in the overall conduct of this project and contributed to writing the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Copyright information

© Springer-Verlag 2010

Authors and Affiliations

  • Darin Jaturapatporn
    • 1
  • Erica Moran
    • 2
  • Chris Obwanga
    • 3
  • Amna Husain
    • 4
  1. 1.Department of Family Medicine, Ramathibodi HospitalMahidol UniversityBangkokThailand
  2. 2.Department of Surgical Oncology, Toronto General HospitalUniversity of TorontoTorontoCanada
  3. 3.Windfields Farm Limited Clinical Research Unit, Temmy Latner Center for Palliative Care, Mount Sinai Hospital, Faculty of MedicineUniversity of TorontoTorontoCanada
  4. 4.Temmy Latner Center for Palliative Care, Mount Sinai Hospital, Faculty of MedicineUniversity of TorontoTorontoCanada

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