Preparation of a Booklet for the Prevention of Pathological Fractures in Patients with Bone Metastases

ABSTRACT

Introduction:  Bone metastases are common in advanced cancer and, when associated with pathological fractures, can impact functionality, quality of life and prognosis. Education practices strengthen health care by incorporating family members and patients into the caring process. Until then, no guidelines for caregivers on care to prevent pathological fractures related to bone metastases were found in the literature.

Objective:  To develop and validate a booklet on care for caregivers of patients with bone metastases to prevent pathological fractures.

Method:  The process of preparing and validating the booklet was carried out in three stages: 1. elaboration of the material based on a literature review; 2. validation of content, appearance and language involving 20 healthcare professionals and ten patient caregivers. The Content Validity Index (CVI) was used to measure the proportion of agreement, with CVI ≥ 0.80 being considered acceptable; 3. experts panel to evaluate disagreements and suggestions arising from the previous stage.

Results:  An initial version of the booklet was prepared and submitted to content evaluation. All items of the material presented CVI > 0.90 in the first round of the evaluation. Additionally, suggestions from participants to improve the booklet through a questionnaire were evaluated, resulting in the acceptance of 65.2% of the suggestions.

Conclusion:  The booklet developed was validated and the suggestions incorporated allowed to reach the most appropriate final model, which will probably help to strengthen guidance to patient caregivers in the process of health care and education.

Key words:
Bone Neoplasms; Neoplasm Metastasis; Fractures, Spontaneous/prevention & control; Caregivers; Health Education