RESUMO
Objective To study the effect of different family nursing methods on major catheter-re-lated complications in cancer patients with peripherally inserted central catheter (PICC) during chemother-apy intermission so as to reduce the incidence of complications and prolong the indwelling time and service life of the catheter. Methods We randomly divided 213 cancer patients who were discharged from hos-pital with PICC into two groups. One group(108 cases) routinely came back to our outpatient clinic and the other (105 cases) went to the community for nursing of the catheter. Results The total incidence rate of complications of the group who came back to our outpatient clinic for nursing of the catheter was 13.8%(15/ 108) and the other group was 51.4%(54/105). There existed statistical significance between the two groups (P<0.01). Conclusions There exists correlation between different family nursing methods and catheter complication rate. We suggest patients come back to our outpatient clinic for nursing of the catheter as pos-sible as they can.