Week 6 NR 449

Adara Patterson NR 449: Evidence-Based Practice April 6, 2019 March Session

Topic Selection: The topic I chose to research and write about is “Outcomes associated with nutritional status.”
Research Question: “What effects does nutritional status have on the emotional, healing, and physical aspects of a client diagnosed with one of the four stages of cancer or liver disease?”
Significance: According to Bharadwaj et al. (2016), malnutrition is an independent risk factor for patient morbidity and mortality, leading to increased healthcare costs.
Key Findings:
- The stage of cancer, the client’s age at diagnosis, and the type of cancer significantly impact the client’s nutritional status (Shahvazi et al., 2017).
- Liver disease also leads to poor nutritional habits due to the body’s inability to detoxify effectively.

Search Strategy:
- Initial searches were conducted using Google Scholar, NCBI journals, and the Chamberlain University Library website.
- The search was refined by using specific keywords related to nutritional outcomes in cancer and liver disease.
- Further refinement included filtering for peer-reviewed articles published between 2015-2019.
Outcome: This search strategy provided a wide range of articles, which were then narrowed down to a few that were particularly relevant and informative on the topics of cancer and liver disease.

Summary of Selected Articles:
- The articles selected for this paper discussed various aspects of care, health, and treatment related to clients with cancer, liver disease, or both.
- Esophageal Cancer and Malnutrition: According to Rietveld, S., Witvliet-van, N., Ottens-Oussoren, K., Van, D., & De, V. (2018), patients with esophageal cancer are at a higher risk of malnutrition during neoadjuvant chemoradiation therapy (CRT), which can have significant implications for their treatment outcomes and overall health.