BMT Study Highlights Opportunities for Meeting Needs of Transplant Patients

Roswell Park nurse Pamela Paplham, DNP, AOCNP, FNP-BC, gave a talk on Saturday, Feb. 14 as part of the 2015 BMT Tandem Meetings in San Diego.

Paplham, a BMT Nurse Practitioner with Roswell Park’s Blood and Marrow Transplant Program and Clinical Associate Professor of Nursing at the University at Buffalo (UB), is one of the authors of a new Roswell Park/UB study on the unmet physical and emotional needs of patients receiving hematopoietic blood and marrow transplants as treatment for hematologic cancers and other blood diseases, and is presenting the team’s findings.

The researchers conducted a pilot study using the University of Waterloo’s “Unmet Needs” survey tool. They found that, among transplant recipients surveyed:

• 55% expressed a need for assistance dealing with anxiety and worry
• 40% reported experiencing fatigue from typical household tasks, even five years after transplant
• More than 40% had difficulty dealing adjusting to new priorities and goals following treatment

The findings suggest several opportunities for clinical intervention to improve overall health and quality of life for patients following transplant, the authors concluded.

Paplham’s co-authors are Tammy Austin-Ketch, PhD, FNP-BC, FAANP, of the UB School of Nursing as well as Yali Zhang, MS, Philip McCarthy, MD, and Theresa Hahn, PhD, all of Roswell Park.

The research is summarized in BMT Tandem abstract no. 5739, “Exploring Unmet Needs of Hematopoietic Transplant Recipients.” The research has also been published in Biology of Blood and Marrow Transplantation.

The BMT Tandem Meetings are the combined annual meetings of the Center for International Blood and Marrow Transplant Research (CIBMTR) and American Society of Blood and Marrow Transplantation (ASBMT).