Background: Delivery care and environment for infusion chemotherapy can affect safety and care of patient. Practitioners must ensure each patient receives appropriate infusion therapy at right environment and time.
Objective: The purpose of the study was to assess health care practitioners cancer chemotherapy infusion practice and infusion error related effects on patients at Bugando medical centre.
Methodology: An observational cross sectional study was carried out with 12 health care practitioners who administer chemotherapeutic drug through infusion at Oncology Department, Bugando medical centre and assessment through phone cells to the 124 cancer patients who received chemotherapeutic drugs through infusion at Bugando medical centre or their relatives.
Results and Discussion: The results shows that chemotherapy administration safety standards were not practiced properly because study participants were not following the international standard for chemotherapy administration properly. Also pre chemotherapy counselling was adhered by health care practitioners as the rate of pre chemotherapy counselling was high. Side effects observed during the study were common side effects expected to occur after chemotherapy and most of the side effects were not related to the infusion errors observed during the study. Other side effects observed were associated with the infusion errors.
Conclusion and Recommendation: Results shows there was a frequency of 43.7% in practice competencies among nurses on chemotherapy infusion and 32.7% patient’s encountered side effects. The results may serve as baseline data for establishing health policy that will implement the standard for the safety chemotherapy infusion administration around anticancer drugs which are high-risk intravenous injection.
Wurzburg Road 35, BMC Premises, Post Code: 33102: P. O. Box 1464, Mwanza – Tanzania: Phone: +255 28 298 3384: Fax: +255 28 298 3386: Email: vc@bugando.ac.tz: www.bugando.ac.tz