The family nurse practitioner role to incorporate long-term follow-up guidelines for adult childhood cancer survivors into practice

The purpose of this project was to answer the question: how can nurse practitioners best incorporate the Children's Oncology Group guidelines into long-term follow-up care for adults who are childhood cancer survivors in a primary care practice? A comprehensive review of the literature was conducted to help answer the research question. The findings of this review demonstrated that adherence to and awareness of the Children's Oncology Group guidelines by primary providers was low, and that a multi-component approach would be the most effective to improve incorporation of the Children's Oncology Group guidelines into clinical practice. The research also showed that a multi-disciplinary, consultant led or shared model of care would be most successful with respect to the long-term follow-up of Childhood Cancer Survivors. Patient, provider and system related barriers to the use of the Children's Oncology Group guidelines were examined and discussed. The project concluded with specific recommendations for nurse practitioners to apply to their practice to improve the long-term follow-up for childhood cancer survivors. --Leaf 2.