European Journal of Oncology Nursing, 2019. 40, 98-103, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ejon.2019.04.002

Korean nurses’ adherence to safety guidelines for chemotherapy administration

Oksoo Kim, Haeok Lee;Heeja Jung;Hee Jung Jang;Yanghee Pang;HyeonKyoung Cheong

Highlights

• Nurses are at high risk of exposure to chemotherapeutic agents.
• High adherence to standard precautions for chemotherapy administration required.
• Only 1/4th participants had high adherence, others ranged from moderate to low.
• To improve nurses adherence, it is necessary to strengthen the hospital safety climate.
• Feedback/training and the absence of job hindrances is essential.

Abstract

Purpose
Nurses are at risk from handling chemotherapeutic agents. This study aimed to determine adherence to safety guidelines for chemotherapy administration by Korean nurses and to examine the relationship between the hospital safety climate and nurses' adherence to safety guidelines.
Method
A deive, correlational design with a cross-sectional survey using data from the Korea Nurses' Health Study. For this study, participants included 872 female nurses who had administered chemotherapeutic agents to patients in the last 30 days.
Results
Only a quarter of the participants had high adherence to the safety guidelines, while the majority had moderate to low adherence. The absence of job hindrances and feedback/training – two sub-factors of the hospital safety climate – enhanced the likeliness for nurses to comply with the safety guidelines by almost 1.3 and 1.7 times, respectively.
Conclusion
The results imply that the hospital safety climate, particularly feedback/training, and the absence of job hindrances are significantly correlated with adherence to the safety guidelines for chemotherapy administration. Therefore, organisational and policy support is needed to improve the hospital safety climate.

• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ejon.2019.04.002
• ISBN or ISSN: 1462-3889

• 본 연구는 질병관리본부 연구개발과제연구비를 지원받아 수행되었습니다.
• This research was supported by a fund by Research of Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.