Psychosocial aspects of neoplastic disease. III. Group support for the oncology nurse.

The attitudes of oncology nurses to job-related concepts were assessed by the Semantic Differential List prior to beginning and following six months of weekly 1.5 hour psychodynamically oriented support group sessions. These attitudes were compared to oncology nurses not in the group experience during the same time span. The oncology nurses who had completed the group experience had more negative attitude shifts to the job-pertinent concepts and also showed a greater amount of attitude change in the negative direction than those oncology nurses not in the group. These findings point to the importance of denial in cancer center personnel and indicate that an educational model of group therapy may be more appropriate for this group of health professionals.