Nurse-led patient education pre IV-SACT Version 1.0
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Investigating nurse knowledge and confidence to educate patients and carers pre-IV (intravenous) SACT (systemic anti-cancer therapy).
IRAS ID
319777
Contact name
Lenira Semedo
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Velindre University NHS Trust
Duration of Study in the UK
0 years, 7 months, 1 days
Research summary
Drugs used to treat cancer have serious and possibly life-threatening side-effects. Nurses are essential to provide education to help patients understand and manage potential treatment side-effects, efficiently. Nurses’ ability to deliver patient education depends on their knowledge and confidence. Previous studies have described nurses may have less knowledge and might need specific information to help educate patients. There is little work on nurse knowledge and confidence to educate patients. Specifically, before they receive specific cancer medications, through a needle or tube inserted into a vein. At Velindre Cancer Centre, nurses are trained in administering these cancer medications to educate patients before treatment. This includes junior nurses who may have less experience. Previous work at Velindre investigated patients’ and clinicians’ views of chemotherapy education in a group format. Nurse knowledge and confidence to educate patients were not investigated. Patient education includes information about different cancer treatments with complex side-effects. It is unknown if nurses feel prepared to educate patients and whether they keep up to date with this knowledge whilst coping with increased time pressures for patient care. We aim to develop and test a brief educational intervention to improve nurses’ knowledge and confidence to educate patients before treatment. Over eight months information gained through observations of nurses, their experiences discussed at interviews, questionnaires to investigate their knowledge and confidence, will be used to develop the intervention, informed by published literature and social learning theory. The intervention will be co-produced with public partners and cancer experts and follow the Medical Research Council Framework for developing interventions. Changes in nurse knowledge and confidence will be investigated pre and post intervention. Findings will be thematically analysed, reported descriptively and used to develop recommendations for education in cancer treatment. Velindre University NHS Trust funded the study, carried out at Velindre Cancer Centre.
REC name
N/A
REC reference
N/A