Oral medications are increasingly used to treat cancer, providing a convenient alternative to intravenous treatments. Though taking pills at home may seem easier than receiving chemotherapy in a hospital or clinic, some patients have difficulty adhering to their anticancer medication regimen.
“Patients understand how important these medications are and want to take them,” says Sarah Belcher, assistant professor in the School of Nursing, “but there are many reasons why a patient may not adhere. They might forget to take them regularly, experience burdensome side effects or experience barriers to accessing them.”
Belcher received a $3.1 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to study patterns, predictors and outcomes of oral anticancer medication adherence to inform targeted interventions to identify patients at risk for nonadherence and support patients taking these therapies. If clinicians can identify patients who are at risk for nonadherence, they can provide support for particular behaviors or trigger points before they become a problem.
“Cancer will touch everyone at some point, and the research we do helps to not only treat the disease more effectively but support the individuals going through it.”
“I’ve spent my entire career as an oncology nurse, and I think nurses have a very holistic lens through which we view our patients, their families and the health care system overall,” says Belcher. “Cancer will touch everyone at some point, and the research we do helps to not only treat the disease more effectively but support the individuals going through it.”