The nurse's role in managing chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting: an international survey.

BACKGROUND: Nurses play a substantial role in the prevention and management of chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting (CINV). OBJECTIVES: This study set out to describe nurses' roles in the prevention and management of CINV and to identify any gaps that exist across countries. METHODS: A self-reported survey was completed by 458 registered nurses who administered chemotherapy to cancer patients in Australia, China, Hong Kong, and 9 Latin American countries. RESULTS: More than one-third of participants regarded their own knowledge of CINV as fair to poor. Most participants (>65%) agreed that chemotherapy-induced nausea and chemotherapy-induced vomiting should be considered separately (79%), but only 35% were confident in their ability to manage chemotherapy-induced nausea (53%) or chemotherapy-induced vomiting (59%). Only one-fifth reported frequent use of a standardized CINV assessment tool and only a quarter used international clinical guidelines to manage CINV. CONCLUSIONS: Participants perceived their own knowledge of CINV management to be insufficient. They recognized the need to develop and use a standardized CINV assessment tool and the importance of adopting international guidelines to inform the management of CINV. IMPLICATIONS FOR PRACTICE: Findings indicate that international guidelines should be made available to nurses in clinically relevant and easily accessible formats, that a review of chemotherapy assessment tools should be undertaken to identify reliable and valid measures amenable to use in a clinical settings, and that a CINV risk screening tool should be developed as a prompt for nurses to enable timely identification of and intervention for patients at high risk of CINV.

A randomised controlled trial of group debriefing.

There has never been published a randomised controlled trial of group debriefing. In this study we employed an analogue study with students to conduct the first such trial. Sixty-four participants were shown a stressful video of paramedics attending to injured and dead victims of a road traffic accident. Half the participants were subsequently debriefed and half were provided with tea and biscuits and allowed to talk amongst themselves. A 1 month follow-up was administered. It was found that, while the video was rated as distressing, there were no significant differences between the debriefed and non-debriefed groups on measures of affective distress and trauma symptoms. Those who were debriefed later recalled having wanted to talk more to someone about the video than those who were not debriefed. It is suggested that cognitive dissonance may explain this result.