Assessing the Effectiveness of Prostate Cancer Care and Control and the Role of Nursing Intervention in cancer Radiotherapy : Case of Sub-Saharan Africa

Cancer has been known to be a major health threat in low- and middle-income countries around the world. This to a large extent is due to very little or no awareness (preventive measures), huge shortages of oncologists (low cancer expertise) and lack of proper cancer medical facilities and equipment, thereby putting huge therapeutic health-care burden on the nurse. Orem’s (1995) self-care theory was used as a theoretical framework for this study. This study aimed at assessing the effectiveness of prostate cancer care and control and nursing role in radiotherapy intervention in the sub-Saharan African sub-region by looking into the challenges and the role of nursing in prostate cancer radiotherapy. The study answers the questions of what the different challenges of prostate cancer in Sub-Saharan Africa are and the role of nursing in improving the health of men receiving radiation therapy. The data analysis was based on literature review of ten (10) carefully selected articles (including peer-reviewed), and text, about cancer in black people (men especially including African-American), low and middle-income countries focusing more on Africa and the sub-Saharan sub-region. A deductive analysis was carried out using a qualitative approach of Granehein & Lundman, (2004), which is a systematic method of data analysis involving classification, evaluation and an unbiased verification of the qualitative data from the various articles to arrive at a logical conclusion. From the findings, PCa was known to be the most common cancer in African men. The lack of evidence-based treatment strategies is exacerbated by patients presenting at treatment centers with advanced diseases due to ignorance and poverty which is a huge challenge in the sub-region. The only widespread care and control mechanism in Africa which is the population-based cancer screening was still not common in countries of the sub-Saharan sub-region, therefore surgeons were the once in charge of all elements of cancer for patients with solid tumor, including chemotherapy and palliative care. Most patients diagnosed with PCa had advanced diseases which were only suitable for palliative care, thereby multiplying nursing role in meeting the huge therapeutic care deficits in the absence of oncologists. Though there have been little improvement over the past five years, there is still a huge gap in awareness and diagnosis of the disease in countries of this sub-region of Africa