young nurses into geriatric oncology. But most of all, the geriatric oncology nurse should be interested and challenged by the many aspects of geriatrics and they should like their job, take care of themselves and respect and love the people they care for. 10.1016/j.ejon.2006.04.014 C.Selected poster presentations Quality nursing care: Patient’s perspec- tives and the nursing response (prelimin- ary report) A. Charalambous, R. Papadopoulos, A. Beadmoore School of Nursing, Midwifery and Health Systems, University College of Dublin, Limassol, Cyprus Introduction: Cancer remains a major cause of morbidity and mortality within Cyprus affecting one in four of the population. Alongside the nature of cancer has changed dramatically in recent years, including shorter inpatients stays, an increasing older cancer population and significant improve- ments in treatments outcomes and effectiveness. Despite the recent changes to service delivery, little attention in terms of the quality of health services has yet been focused on cancer patients and nurses. In light of these factors, the need to focus the exploration of the experience on those involved in the delivery and receipt of the care and its’ potential value to nursing practice within the cancer care setting is important. Cancer patients are better informed than before and have increas- ing expectations from the health care system. The pressures of this most educated, consumer-or- iented generation will soon be felt in health care as they age and also begin to manage care on behalf of their parents. Materials and methods: When searching for understanding the intricacies of the peoples’ experiences, hermeneutic phenomenology presents itself as a useful philosophical approach, hence methodology, used for this research. Twenty-five patients and 20 nurses were purposively selected and interviewed through semi-structured inter- views. The patients’ opinions were validated through two focus groups. The key informants’ opinions of the Cyprus Cancer Patients Asso- ciations were also explored through a focus group. The data analysis in this hermeneutic study was carried out in three stages: thematic analysis, analysis of exemplars, and the search for paradigm cases. Results and discussion: The results indicate that patients stress the need for participation in the decision-making process, better communication with the carers, and holistic care emphasizing the increased need for emotional support. In terms of how patients define ‘quality nursing care’ they focus on issues related with the completion of their needs, safety, trusting and qualified personnel. In terms of what they believe about cancer strong cultural themes emerged such as religion. Conclusion: Safe conclusions cannot be drawn at this point as the research study is yet incomplete. In the near future where all the interviews will be completed the nurses will be challenged to respond to the patients’ opinions and areas of concern as part of an effort to generate possible ways of improving the satisfaction of the patient from the nursing care. However, the need for establishing better commu- nication channels with the patients offering them all the necessary information that will enable them for shared-decision making is a problematic area where carers need to implement strategies as to improve the patients’ experiences of the nursing care. 10.1016/j.ejon.2006.04.015 Low persistency with oral bisphos- phonates in cancer patients A. Hoer a , H. Gothe a , V. Barghout b , G. Schiffhorst a , B. Haeussler a a IGES Institute for Healthcare and Social Research, Berlin, Germany b 2Novartis Pharmaceutical Corporation, Florham Park, USA Introduction: The treatment with bisphosphonates has been shown to reduce skeletal complications in patients with bone metastases. However, to prevent Skeletal-related event (SRE) including pathologic fractures, severe bone pain requiring radiation therapy, spinal cord compression, surgery to bone and hypercalcemia of malignancy which could lead to a loss of independence patients must remain on therapy for at least 6 months (Ross et al., 2004. Health Technology Assessment 2004; 8, 1–176). Clinical studies have reported high percen- tage of patient discontinuation with oral bispho- sphonates but the rates and drivers of persistency have not been studied in a naturalistic setting. Materials and methods: To examine the persistency rate of oral bisphosphonates for cancer patients we used a health insurance claims database for persons enrolled in a German sickness fund (01/2000–12/ ARTICLE IN PRESS ABSTRACTS 220