Knowledge of Staff Nurses on Immediate Physiological Problems Occurring due to Chemotherapy: A Descriptive Study

Abstract

Background: People undergoing chemotherapy will have side effects, usually occurring such as nausea and vomiting, alopecia, pain, fatigue, neutropenia, mouth sores, and thrombocytopenia. Some side effects can be serious enough to create delays in treatment. These may include febrile neutropenia, anemia, thrombocytopenia, etc. The objectives were formulated to carry out the study to assess the knowledge of staff nurses on immediate physiological problems occurring due to chemotherapy.

Methods: The study opted to use a descriptive approach to its methodology. The research was conducted at the Patel Multispecialty Hospital in Jalandhar, which is located in the state of Punjab in India. The information was gathered from eighty staff nurses using the convenient sample technique and a self-structured questionnaire, and it was then analyzed to determine the level of knowledge possessed by the staff nurses. When doing the analysis of the data, both descriptive and inferential statistics were utilized. Pender’s model of health promotion served as the inspiration for the conceptual framework that this study employed.

Results: The overall aspect-wise mean knowledge score was 13.63 with an SD of 5.509 and the total percentage was 40%. In the present communication, we have observed that in the age group 41–50 years has good knowledge of chemotherapy and its immediate side effects rather than others.

Conclusion: The nurses with a B.Sc. degree having more information as compared to GNMs followed by those who were working more than 5 years has good knowledge of the side effects of chemotherapy as compared to other staff. Hence, there is a need for an information guide sheet related to immediate physiological problems and the management of chemotherapy, which will be useful to improve the knowledge of staff nurses.