Symptom management is an important component of nursing practice across care settings, client populations, and type of practice. Although the value of symptom management is widely recognized, the research base supporting practice is best characterized as uneven with extensive research on symptoms like pain and relatively little attention to problems like thirst and itching. Symptom management research is broad in scope. It includes descriptions of the nature and pattern of symptoms, symptom appraisal, approaches to symptom reporting, examining the patterns of relationships among a variety of symptoms, testing interventions designed to prevent or ameliorate a symptom or those aimed at modifying responses to symptoms, and the systematic evaluation of strategies for translating knowledge about symptom management into practice. The experience of life-threatening illness is especially relevant to the science of symptom management because symptoms are a key element of the illness experience. The goal of this Center is to advance the state-of-the-art in symptom management in life-threatening illness.

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