A Study on the Handling Patterns of Anticancer Drugs and Related Symptoms in Nurses

Shin, Hae Sook; Lee, Se Hoon

Abstract

To evaluate the subjective symptoms; among nurses handling anticancer drugs, we investigated symptom prevalence in 487 nurses exposed to anticancer drugs and 242 control nurses, who are working at 14 university hospitals in Korea by self-administered questionnaire. Safety regulations for handling anticancer drugs in these hospitals as well as the level of knowledge on safety .rules of them among nurses were also evaluated, The results were as follows: 1. Only 1.5% of nurses used. the biological safety cabinet always, 32.7% could not use it during evening time and on holidays, and 65.8% could not use at all since lack of it. When nurses prepared anticancer drugs, they wore gloves (49.1%), gown (7.2%), goggle (1.6%), and mask (11. 5%). And. 46.1% of them answered that they ate and drank in the anticancer drugs preparation room. 2. The level of knowledge on safety rules of anticancer drugs were generally low in both exposed (12.7/17 items) and control (12.7/17 items) group. The questions which nurses answered wrong exceeded fifty percent were: the possibility of exposing to anticancer drugs when they correct their make-ups; and when they handled body fluids of cancer patients. Only 20.3%. of the, nurses were acknowledged with the hours for the cancer patients' body fluids being considered to be contaminated after receiving chemotherapy. 3. The prevalence of allergic disease was higher in exposed group than in control group. Among 43 symptoms of total, the prevalence of 10 symptoms (nausea, skin rash, itching, chronic throat irritation, tachycardia, alopecia, skin hyper pigmentation, loss of libido, leukopema, thrombocytopenia) were higher in exposed group than in control group. 4. The prevalence of ten symptoms which showed higher prevalence in exposed group was significantly correlated with eating, and drinking in the preparation room for anti cancer drugs, the degree of skin contact with anticancer drugs, and the amount of anticancer handling them, and BML It was shown that eating and drinking in anticancer drug preparation room, and the amount of handling them, significantly affected the prevalence of 10 symptoms among nurses exposed after stepwise multiple regression analysis. The results of this study suggest that nurses handling anticancer drugs have potential risk of exposure to anticancer drugs, and the preventive measures for the protection of nurses' health be needed by education, and improvement of their working environment.