example

Abstract

The AANC essentials have been deemed critical in presenting key information consisting of guidelines to acquisition of knowledge and competencies by new clinicians to be able to deliver safe, competent, and quality care to patients. The paper seeks to provide an appraisal of some of these essentials including I, II, IV, V, VI and VIII. The topic of research is breast cancer among young women, which has become a growing issue in the United States. The paper seeks to prove the hypothesis that AANC essentials are critical in providing guidance in acquiring knowledge and competencies providing care to young women suffering from breast cancer. The qualitative research model adopted by the study is fit for the topic since only a systematic review was done.

AACN Essential Paper: Breast Cancer in Young Women

Introduction

The American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN) presents several essentials that encompass core information that new clinicians ought to comprehend in order to deliver safe, competent nursing care to patients regardless of their medical diagnoses. The goal of attaining a higher degree is to prepare people with the expertise and knowledge required in their nursing career. The essentials reviewed during this session included I, II, IV, V, VI, and VIII. While focusing on the issue of breast cancer in young women, one can be able to understand the importance of having such essentials in the delivery of nursing care. There is the need to have skills and competency in handling such patients owing to the fact that breast cancer continues to claim many lives around the world.

The Problem

In spite of the notable growth in cancer study settings, breast cancer continues to be a critical health issue and stands as a top biomedical research priority. The illness is the most common cancer that affects women around the world (Anastasiadi, Lianos, Ignatiadou, Harissis, & Mitsis, 2017). Its incidence as well as mortality rates are anticipated to rise significantly in the next years. During the recent past, scholars’ interests have been aligned toward this direction, especially among young women (Anastasiadi et al., 2017). The current findings depict that among women below the age of forty-five years old, breast cancer remains to be on the lead in causing cancer-oriented demises.

The kind of cancer appears to be extremely heterogeneous and has probable aggressive and complicated biological features. Nevertheless, the management approaches, suggestions, and alternatives tend not to be age-oriented (Almutairi, Tamrin, Wirza, & Ahmad, 2019). Indeed, the complicated biological formation of this category of cancer is deemed uncertain as well as unexplored. In this regard, there is a high need for nurses to be guided appropriately and efficiently in handling breast cancer among young women. They should be prepared to conduct evidence-based research that would provide age-based approaches to tacking breast cancer in young women.

The purpose of this study is to determine the role of AANC essentials I, II, IV, V, VI, VIII in helping develop knowledge and competencies among nurses in handling the increasing cases of breast cancer among young women in the United States. AANC has played a significant role in helping nurses, especially those pursuing their masters to handle such complexities by incorporating relevant information in the education curricula. The association plays the role of representing the higher degree in nursing education programs in the United States. Considering the rising number of breast cancer cases among young women in the country, there is the need for AANC to continuously get involved in updating the provisions and its representation of the nursing development programs that would equip nurses with the necessary skills and knowledge in tackling the issue. The hypothesis of the research is that the AANC essentials are crucial in developing knowledge and competencies needed in handling breast cancer among young women.

Review of Literature

The literature review seeks to provide an overview of the selected AANC essentials in the masters programs. They include essentials I, II, IV, V, VI, and VIII. The essence of this review is to understand the chosen essentials and attempt to relate them to the ongoing practices in handling breast cancer among young women.

Essential I: Background for Practice from Sciences and Humanities

The essential identifies that the masters-prepared nurse should be able to incorporate scientific findings from nursing, quality improvement, genetics, and organizational sciences among others to enhance progressive improvement of care in various settings. In this regard, Anastasiadi et al. (2017) highlighted that nurses should be in a position to integrate all the scientific outcomes as they handle the breast cancer patients, especially considering the complexity the illness presents to the field.

Essential II: Organizational and Systems Leadership

The essential identifies that leadership is critical in the enhancement of quality and safety in delivering care to patients. In this regard, Anastasiadi et al. (2017) acknowledged that leadership skills are required emphasizing ethical as well as critical selection of alternatives, amiable working relationships, as well as a models-perspective. In this case, nurses ought to be prepared for leadership in order to enhance high quality and safe care toward young women suffering from breast cancer.

Essential IV: Translating and Integrating Scholarship in Practice

The point in this essential is the recognition that the masters-prepared professional uses research findings within the practice settings. According to Anderson et al. (2019), one should be able to settle problems, strive for change, and release critical results. In this case, the nurse that has attained a master’s degree in nursing should be in a position to apply research findings presented from practices in breast cancer caring among young women. Through this, it would be easy to handle the complexities surrounding the practice.

Essential V: Informatics and Healthcare Technologies

The essential acknowledges that the master’s-prepared professional in nursing utilizes patient-based advancements to provide and enhance care. A nurse should use communication technologies to incorporate and coordinate the care (Anderson et al., 2019). Indeed, taking care of breast cancer patients, especially the young women presenting challenging care formalities would require this kind of essential.

Essential VI: Health Policy and Advocacy

The essential identifies that a nurse is capable of intervening at the model level through policy creation process and deploy advocacy procedures to influence care. According to Almutairi et al. (2019), a nurse taking care of breast cancer patients should be in a position to contribute to policy development and advocacy strategies needed to handle the complex illness. Therefore, the essential becomes important in handling breast cancer patients.

Essential VIII: Clinical Prevention and Population Health for Improving Care

In this essential, a master’s-prepared individual in nursing uses and incorporates wide, client-based, and culturally appropriate ideas in various junctures. According to Almutairi et al. (2019), caring for young women with breast cancer would require the application and integration of client-oriented and culturally sensitive processes in management and delivery of treatment. The families of such patients ought to be properly involved among many aggregates of the population.

Design and Procedures

The study method was purely descriptive in the sense that it aimed at gathering data regarding the selected AANC essentials including I, II, IV, V, VI, and VIII. Information was also collected regarding how the essentials are applicable in caring for young women suffering from breast cancer. The review was done from selected articles that illustrate the essentials and breast cancer among young women. A total of three articles were used for the analysis.

The selection of the articles was done through convenience sampling. In this approach, several search words were used to guide the search. They included AANC essentials, breast cancer in young women, and the United States among others deemed necessary.

Only qualitative data was used to guide the results of this study. In this case, there was only a review of the relevant articles. The articles provided important information that was required to understand the importance of AANC essentials in guiding care among breast cancer patients in the United States.

Data Analysis and Presentation

Through proper systematic review and analysis, it became possible to assess the findings and draw conclusions. Data analysis was purely descriptive as it sought to compare and contrast the findings from the reviewed articles. The advantage was that the sample size was small, thus becoming easy to make inferences and draw conclusions from the study. The findings proved the hypothesis that AANC essentials can play a significant role in guiding the acquisition of knowledge and competencies among master’s nurses to be able to handle young women suffering from cancer.

Conclusion

The findings of the study proved that AANC essentials are critical in provision of care among patients with breast cancer. They help guide the acquisition of knowledge and competencies needed in handling complex issues in healthcare. The results of this study have the implication in nursing care in that they help understand the complexities in handling breast cancer patients. They can help define new ways of comprehending the changing trend in this illness over the years. The article provided has proved to be informative and relative to the subject of study.

References

Almutairi, A. H., Tamrin, S. B. B. M., Wirza, R., & Ahmad, N. B. (2019). Systematic review on knowledge and awareness of breast cancer and risk factors among young women. Advances in Bioscience and Clinical Medicine, 7(1), 41-47.

Anastasiadi, Z., Lianos, G. D., Ignatiadou, E., Harissis, H. V., & Mitsis, M. (2017). Breast cancer in young women: an overview. Updates in Surgery, 69(3), 313-317.

Anderson, A. L., Waddell, A., Brennan, P., Burnett, C., Anderson, C., & Short, N. M. (2019). Advancing health policy education in nursing: American Association of Colleges of Nursing Faculty Policy Think Tank. Journal of Professional Nursing.