Effect of Educational Instructions Regarding Self Care of Women with Breast Cancer Related Lymphedema

Abstract

Breast cancer (BC) is the most commonly occurring cancer in women and the second most common cancer overall (World Cancer Research Fund, 2018). LE is one of the most debilitating outcomes of BC treatment (Can et al., 2016). BCRL is an accumulation of lymph fluid in the interstitial spaces of the arm or chest wall, where normal lymphatic flow has been disrupted by axillary node dissection, mastectomy and radiation or chemotherapy (Paula, 2015). Patients' education is a dynamic, integrated and multifaceted teaching-learning process in which the nurse and patient work together to change patients' behaviors through their functional status with medical instruction. Health education is an independent function of nursing practice and a primary nursing responsibility. Many of these nursing activities are accomplished through patients' education (Hinkle & Cheever, 2014). Breast cancer related lymphedema self care generally includes wearing a compression garment and/or self-bandaging, conducting self-manual lymphatic drainage, and