Dataset Information

Oral chemotherapy safety practices at US cancer centres: questionnaire survey.

ABSTRACT:

Objective

To characterise current safety practices for the use of oral chemotherapy.

Design

Written questionnaire survey of pharmacy directors of cancer centres.

Setting

Comprehensive cancer centres in the United States.

Results

Respondents from 42 (78%) of 54 eligible centres completed the survey, after consulting with 89 colleagues. Clinicians at 29 centres used handwritten prescriptions, two used preprinted paper prescriptions, and six used electronic systems for most oral chemotherapy prescribing. For six commonly used oral chemotherapies, on average 10 centres required a diagnosis on the prescription, 11 required the protocol number, four required the cycle number, nine required double checking by a second clinician, 14 required a calculation of body surface area, and 14 required a calculation of dose per square metre of body surface area. Only a third of centres requested patients' written informed consent when oral chemotherapy was given off protocol. Nearly a quarter (10) of centres had no formal process for monitoring patients' adherence. In the past year respondents at 10 centres reported at least one serious adverse drug event related to oral chemotherapy, and respondents at 13 centres reported a serious near miss.

Conclusion

Few of the safeguards routinely used for infusion chemotherapy have been adopted for oral chemotherapy at US cancer centres. There is currently no consensus at these centres about safe medication practices for oral chemotherapy.

SUBMITTER: Weingart SN

PROVIDER: S-EPMC1804126 | biostudies-literature | 2007 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Publications

Oral chemotherapy safety practices at US cancer centres: questionnaire survey.

Weingart Saul N SN Flug Jonathan J Brouillard Daniela D Morway Laurinda L Partridge Ann A Bartel Sylvia S Shulman Lawrence N LN Connor Maureen M

BMJ (Clinical research ed.) 20070112 7590

<h4>Objective</h4>To characterise current safety practices for the use of oral chemotherapy.<h4>Design</h4>Written questionnaire survey of pharmacy directors of cancer centres.<h4>Setting</h4>Comprehensive cancer centres in the United States.<h4>Results</h4>Respondents from 42 (78%) of 54 eligible centres completed the survey, after consulting with 89 colleagues. Clinicians at 29 centres used handwritten prescriptions, two used preprinted paper prescriptions, and six used electronic systems for ...[more]

PMID: 17223629

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Project description:BACKGROUND: Safety activities have been initiated at many hospitals in Taiwan, but little is known about the safety culture at these hospitals. The aims of this study were to verify a safety culture survey instrument in Chinese and to assess hospital safety culture in Taiwan. METHODS: The Taiwan Patient Safety Culture Survey was conducted in 2008, using the adapted Safety Attitude Questionnaire in Chinese (SAQ-C). Hospitals and their healthcare workers participated in the survey on a voluntary basis. The psychometric properties of the five SAQ-C dimensions were examined, including teamwork climate, safety climate, job satisfaction, perception of management, and working conditions. Additional safety measures were asked to assess healthcare workers' attitudes toward their collaboration with nurses, physicians, and pharmacists, respectively, and perceptions of hospitals' encouragement of safety reporting, safety training, and delivery delays due to communication breakdowns in clinical areas. The associations between the respondents' attitudes to each SAQ-C dimension and safety measures were analyzed by generalized estimating equations, adjusting for the clustering effects at hospital levels. RESULTS: A total of 45,242 valid questionnaires were returned from 200 hospitals with a mean response rate of 69.4%. The Cronbach's alpha was 0.792 for teamwork climate, 0.816 for safety climate, 0.912 for job satisfaction, 0.874 for perception of management, and 0.785 for working conditions. Confirmatory factor analyses demonstrated a good model fit for each dimension and the entire construct. The percentage of hospital healthcare workers holding positive attitude was 48.9% for teamwork climate, 45.2% for perception of management, 42.1% for job satisfaction, 37.2% for safety climate, and 31.8% for working conditions. There were wide variations in the range of SAQ-C scores in each dimension among hospitals. Compared to those without positive attitudes, healthcare workers with positive attitudes to each SAQ dimension were more likely to perceive good collaboration with coworkers, and their hospitals were more likely to encourage safety reporting and to prioritize safety training programs (Wald chi-square test, p < 0.001 for all). CONCLUSIONS: Analytical results verified the psychometric properties of the SAQ-C at Taiwanese hospitals. The safety culture at most hospitals has not fully developed and there is considerable room for improvement.

Dataset Information

Oral chemotherapy safety practices at US cancer centres: questionnaire survey.

Objective

Design

Setting

Results

Conclusion

Publications

Oral chemotherapy safety practices at US cancer centres: questionnaire survey.

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