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

Objective: The purpose of this study is to investigate nurses’ levels of knowledge about port catheters (PCs), define factors effecting them and to define the subjects in which more education strategies should be developed. Patients and Methods: A descriptive, cross-sectional study was carried out in cancer centers in Turkey. Participants were evaluated with structured questionnaires to assess the levels of knowledge about PCs and management strategies of PC related complications. The questions were 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 less than 1 year of job experience in oncology. Knowledge about “Port catheter usage and complications” and “difficulties while using PC” was worse than other subscales. The effects of the 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 scores when compared with others ( 27.2±11.4 vs. 30.6±9.4, P=0.003). There was no significant difference 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 with knowledge about PCs. Nurses actively caring PCs should be routinely updated, especially about complications of PCs and management strategies of them.

Keywords:

Nurse, knowledge level, port catheters port catheter care,

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