Background: Cancer can be treated with chemotherapy, but incomplete treatment may result from patient attitudes and factors like side effect expectations. Effective chemotherapy can reduce cancers impact, but many eligible patients at BMC face barriers that prevent them from receiving treatment, emphasizing the need for interventions to enhance chemotherapy adherence through understanding patients decision-making. Broad objective was to determine factors affecting receipt of chemotherapy among cancer outpatients on their follow-up basis at BMC.
Method: This study was conducted at BMC, The study was a cross-sectional hospital based prospective study conducted for duration of one month, The study population was involved cancer out patients who usually come to receive routine chemotherapy, Associations between two or more qualitative or categorical variables was assessed using chi-square test.
Results/Discussion: Among 384 participants with a median age was 52 years, 32.3% (n=124) had negative attitudes towards routine receipt of chemotherapy during follow up at BMC, reason for bad attitude was due to factors that influence patient attitudes. This study identified significant association between attitude and social demographic factors such as age (P=0.001) occupation (P=0.029) education level (P=0.001) and residence (P=0.001).
Conclusion: Patient attitude towards routine chemotherapy at BMC is significantly influenced by factors such as age, occupation, residence, and type of cancer and significant associations found between attitude and residence and education level; addressing these factors through comprehensive education, supportive care, and improved financial assistance can enhance patient attitudes and lead to better treatment outcomes."