School of Nursing investigator explores
new approaches to curbing cancer pain

Kris Kwekkeboom, PhD, RN

The American Cancer Society publicized a haunting statistic that keeps Kris Kwekkeboom, PhD, RN, assistant professor at the UW-Madison School of Nursing, highly motivated to pursue her research: Men have a one in two risk and women a one in three risk of developing cancer at some point in their lifetime.

“This means we will all be affected by cancer pain,” says Kwekkeboom, “either experiencing it ourselves or supporting a loved one who is dealing with it.”

Well-versed in patient care, the nurse scientist focuses her research at the School of Nursing on finding non-drug strategies, or adjuvants to medication, that help curb pain symptoms in patients with cancer.

“I practiced in inpatient and outpatient oncology settings as well as hospice,” says the Kwekkeboom. “One of the common experiences I saw across those settings was the problem of unrelieved pain. My desire to do more to help my patients spurred my interest in nursing interventions that could be used in addition to analgesics to maximize pain relief.”

Matching patient with tool

Much of Kwekkeboom’s research has focused on using guided imagery as a tool for reducing cancer pain. Guided imagery uses the power of the mind to assist the body in relaxing, maintaining health or changing the way symptoms are experienced.

The faculty researcher is looking to identify the characteristics that signal a patient’s likelihood of success in using guided imagery. Individual differences in ability to conjure images vividly and to experience the images as if they were real is one key to determining whether an individual patient will be successful in reducing cancer pain with this strategy, says Kwekkeboom.

“Persons with good imaging ability, positive outcome expectancy, positive past experiences with imagery and few concurrent symptoms,” Kwekkeboom says, have been shown to be good candidates for this type of intervention.

Kwekkeboom’s work in exploring nondrug strategies for pain so impressed the Oncology Nursing Society (ONS) that it awarded her the 2005 Oncology Nursing Society (ONS) New Investigator Award. The $1,000 award, says Kwekkeboom, has energized her:

“The new investigator award has really affirmed that the work I’m doing is contributing to the scientific foundation of oncology nursing,” she says, “and that nurses are interested in learning more about using nondrug strategies for pain management."

Kwekkeboom has applied for federal monies to broaden her study. She currently is testing individual patient characteristics that may predict success with muscle relaxation techniques as an additional tool to managing cancer pain. Once these predictors of success are identified, she notes, “the information can be used to develop guidelines to help nurses match patients to the nondrug interventions that they are best suited to use.”

Her taste for Madison

The homegrown researcher loves Wisconsin. Her family and her husband’s family all reside in the Badger State. After obtaining three degrees—BS, MS, PhD—from the UW-Madison School of Nursing, she returned to her alma mater after a four-year stint as a faculty member at the University of Iowa.

“Madison has an amazing cadre of pain researchers who make the UW-Madison School of Nursing a uniquely stimulating and supportive environment,” says the Sheboygan Falls native.

Flanked by seasoned investigators whose aims match hers like reflections in a pool, Kwekkeboom explores new methods for managing pain where the patient’s values, preferences, needs and resources form the nucleus of the regimen of care.

“My hope, explains Kwekkeboom, “is that this research provides the foundation on which health care providers can base their treatment decisions to ensure that individual patients receive the pain treatments that are most likely to work for them.”

For more information about Dr. Kwekkeboom’s research, visit her home page: http://www.son.wisc.edu/directories/faculty/Kwekkeboom/kwekkeboom.htm.