Nurses’ Knowledge Levels About Port Catheter Care (POCATH Study): a study of the palliative care working committee of the Turkish Oncology Group (TOG)

摘要

Objective: The purpose of this study is to investigate nurses’ levels of knowledge about portcatheters (PCs), define factors effecting them and to define the subjects in which more educationstrategies should be developed.Patients and Methods: A descriptive, cross-sectional study was carried out in cancer centers inTurkey. Participants were evaluated with structured questionnaires to assess the levels ofknowledge about PCs and management strategies of PC related complications. The questionswere designed to evaluate their knowledge in different subscales.Results: 363 nurses in 7 cancer centers in 4 different cities in Turkey participated in the study.While 147 (40.5%) nurses had a more than 10 years of experience, 13.8% of them had a lessthan 1 year of job experience in oncology. Knowledge about “Port catheter usage andcomplications” and “difficulties while using PC” was worse than other subscales. The effects ofthe job experience on knowledge showed a negative correlation between them (r= -168, p=0.001). In addition, participants with an experience of more than 10 years have worse scoreswhen compared with others ( 27.2±11.4 vs. 30.6±9.4, P=0.003). There was no significantdifference between nurses working in a university hospital and public hospital (28.5 ± 10.9 vs.30.4±10.4, P= 0.086).Conclusion: The study concluded that experience in the field is negatively correlated withknowledge about PCs. Nurses actively caring PCs should be routinely updated, especially aboutcomplications of PCs and management strategies of them.