Teaching a research based approach to the management of breathlessness in patients with lung cancer

Breathlessness is a common but complex symptom experienced by-patients with lung cancer. Corner and colleagues have developed a therapeutic nursing in tervention for the management of breathlessness. The Macmillan Practice Dev elopment Unit (MPDU) have recently undertaken a multi-centre evaluation of the intervention. The authors were involved in this multi-centre study as c linical practitioners offering the intervention in a randomised control tri al. There is strong evidence to suggest that much research fails to influen ce clinical practice. A commitment tb practice development led us to explor e the reasons for this research-practice gap. This paper considers the fact ors that facilitate implementation of research and, in particular, how this applies to the breathlessness intervention. Practitioners need to feel com petent in the skills described in the intervention to implement the researc h findings into their practice. Therefore, we developed a course to teach t he breathlessness intervention. A description of the course is presented, t ogether with the theoretical basis for the course design and the tools used to evaluate it.