Abstract:
Anticancer agents have long been introduced and continue to be widely used in the treatment of cancer. An increasing trend of anticancer drug use, mainly in cancer treatment, has increased the occupational exposure among the nurses. Nurses, during preparation and administration of these drugs are at higher risk to the dreadful side effects of these drugs.
Objectives: To assess knowledge, attitude and associated factors of cancer chemotherapy among nurses in Gondar and Deberemarkos referral hospitals.
Method: Institution based cross- sectional study was conducted using structured questionnaire. A total of 411 nurses from two referral hospitals in Amhara regional state were included. Participants were selected by simple random sampling techniques. The study participants from each hospital were selected proportionally. Data was cleared, coded and entered into Epi-Info Version-7 software and then transported to SPSS Version-20 software package for analysis. Logistic regression analysis was carried out to see the effect of explanatory variables on the dependent variable.
Results: A total of 423 nurses from Gondar and Debere Markos hospitals were approached and 411 were participated in this study. The response rate was 97%. 45.5% of nurses were knowledgeable and 40.9% of them had favorable attitude. Among the variables year of experience AOR=2, CI (1.14, 3.16), and clinical area AOR=2,CI (1.15,3.49)were positively associated with knowledge. Working area AOR=0.62,CI(0.39,0.99) had negative association with attitude of nurses on cancer chemotherapy administration.
