concept of nursing demands that nurses understand the funda- mental needs of patients so that nurses can help their patients make their lives as normal and productive as possible (Henderson, 2006). The patientenurse relationship forms the basis for nursing practice, and non-technical skills or affective aspects of care are important, as well as technical skills and the physical aspects of nursing care (Zamanzadeh et al., 2010). A partnership in nursing care is an essential part of patient-centered care, in which patients and nurses work together on decisions about daily life and care (Kvåle and Bondevik, 2008).
Despite the importance of nursing, the nursing presence is increasingly invisible to the patients and to other disciplines (Yagasaki and Komatsu, 2013). The complexity of healthcare sys- tems increases the distance between patients and nurses. In addi- tion, the importance of the oncology nurse’s role in multidisciplinary teams is waning (Boyle, 2010). There are dis- crepancies of multidisciplinary awareness of other healthcare professionals’ roles, and the nurse’s role is consistently “unseen” among other health professionals (Jenkins et al., 2001).
In Japan, while a greater weight has been placed on diagnosis and treatment in oncology, little psychosocial support is offered