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Aim: The purpose of the study was to identify the actual circumstances of treatment and nursing care for cancer patients during a time of disaster. Methods: The study subjects were 17 nurses working in eight institutions who engaged in nursing activities for cancer patients in the wake of the 1995 Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake at hospitals located in and around the stricken areas. The data were collected through focus group interviews and were analyzed by inductive and qualitative methods to categorize needs. The results were compared with the data categorized by Knowledgeocean, a text-mining tool for analyzing unstructured text in order to examine data validity. Results: The actual circumstances of the treatment and nursing care of cancer patients in disaster situations were divided into three major categories and 10 subcategories. The major categories were: “difficulty in keeping track of patients” undergoing outpatient treatment, “adjustment in treatment” in an effort to continue various therapies for cancer treatment, and “care for patients and their families before and after the last moment” in the case of terminally ill patients. Conclusions: The results suggest that the following issues should be addressed in the future: the need for an information management system for the resumption of interrupted treatment and the transportation of patients, the need for enhancing the self-care ability of cancer patients in ordinary situations so that they can be more self-sufficient in disaster situations, and the need for the creation of a suitable location for dying patients and their families and the development of grief care strategies in disaster situations.

Aim: The aim of this study is to develop a care package to help cancer patients improve their self-care abilities and better prepare for a disaster, so that they can continue treatment and perform symptom management strategies in disaster situations. Methods: In this study, the “Care Package for Cancer Patients in Times of Disaster”, which comprises four pamphlets, was developed through discussions among the eight members of the study group. The care package was produced by making additions and modifications, based on the findings obtained in the above two steps, to the patient education booklets developed in the area of oncology. Results: Of the areas that cancer patients find difficult in times of disaster, the following six were extracted: difficulty in continuing treatment, the possibility of running out of pain medicines and how to store pain medicines, the possibility of not being able to go to a regular hospital, the shortage of stoma-care appliances and other products, the possibility of exposure to infections at a shelter, and the necessity of providing care for cancer patients and their families before and after death. By incorporating these pieces of information, we developed the four pamphlets. These pamphlets are posted on the website for public use. Conclusion: The newly developed pamphlets incorporate information on how to cope with specific situations in times of disaster, based on the findings obtained from the “Survey on Actual Conditions of Treatment and Nursing Care to Cancer Patients in Disaster Situations”.