Adherence to safety measures for protection in health professionals who prepare and administer chemotherapeutics and the influencing factors

Aim: This study aims to examine whether health professionals who prepare and administer chemotherapeutics take necessary safety measures for protection of themselves and their environment, and the affecting factors. Method: The sample of this cross-sectional and descriptive study included units in university hospitals and state training-education hospitals in Izmir that both prepared and administered chemotherapeutics (n=200). Data were gathered between March 2014 and January 2015, using a questionnaire that was composed by the researcher. Count, percentage, arithmetic mean and chi-square test were used for the evaluation of data. Results: 94.8% of the health professionals were nurses, 3.2% were biologists, and 1.9% were midwives. The most commonly used safety measures were luer lock syringes for preparation of the drugs (50%), and chemotherapy administration sets for administration of the drugs (88.3%). The following were found to have statistically significant effect on adherence to preventive measures: Institution, age, marital status, having children, training, occupational experience, the unit where she/he works, position, chemotherapy experience, the way of work, satisfaction, membership to oncology association, chemotherapy certificate, chemotherapy training, periodic training, history of cancer in the family, exposure to chemotherapeutic agents. Factors that affected safety measures were workload (36.4%), shortcomings in supplies (33.8%) and difficulty of use of the protective equipment (32.5%). Conclusion: Protective measures taken by health professionals during preparation and administration of chemotherapeutics are inadequate. Therefore, it is recommended that safe usage standards for chemotherapeutic agents are established, periodic training programs on safe usage are organized and participation of personnel is encouraged by managers. Key words: Chemotherapeutic agent, safe usage, protective measure, nurse