The Professional Home for Oncology Nurses

Electronic health literacy, or ehealth literacy, can contribute to self-efficacy in community-dwelling older adults, a researcher reported in Clinical Gerontologist. The findings highlight how better electronic health literacy and self-efficacy can improve health outcomes and self-care in older adults who have a higher incidence of comorbidities.

“Although technology can assist, there’s really no substitute for the conversations and interactions we have with people,” ONS member Regina Carlisle, MS, BSN, RN, OCN^®, senior cancer information nurse in the Office of Patient Education at University Hospitals Seidman Cancer Center in Cleveland, OH, cautioned. “You must still apply best practices for written and spoken communication.” 

The mean readability level of patient information pages about the five deadliest cancers on 34 National Comprehensive Cancer Network member websites was equivalent to a college freshman, well above the American Medical Association– and National Institutes of Health–recommended maximum sixth grade reading level, researchers reported in study results published in Surgical Oncology Insight. The findings underscore the need to tailor complex information on cancer diagnoses and treatments to average readers to promote patient understanding and health literacy.

Nurses have a dedication to ensuring that patients can understand and apply health information to make personal and treatment-related decisions—a hurdle that’s particularly challenging in the context of health literacy.

Responding to a 2023 survey conducted by the American Nurses Foundation, 56% of nurses said they are experiencing burnout, including emotional exhaustion, and 64% said they feel “a great deal of stress because of their job.” In another small study among oncology nurses specifically, Ko and Kiser-Larson found that more than 50% of those working in an outpatient oncology unit reported being moderately stressed. COVID-19’s psychological implications further affected nurses’ mental health, leading many to exit the profession. Those statistics raise an important question: What can we do to support oncology nurses in addressing their well-being needs? 

In October 2024, 65 members of the U.S. Congress signed a letter asking the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to "take aggressive enforcement action to remove the thousands of illegal flavored e-cigarettes that remain on the market without approval."