Congress Abstracts 2004

10

CARE OF THE ONCOLOGY PATIENT: A PROGRAM FOR NURSING ASSISTANTS. Rhonjean Gordon, RN, MSN, OCN^®, and JoAnn Mick, RN, MSN, MBA, AOCN^®, University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX; Elizabeth Ann G. Nutt, RN, MSN, CNOR, CS, Clear Lake Regional Hospital, Webster, TX; and Mark F. Munsell, MS, and Marlene Z. Cohen, RN, PhD, FAAN, University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX.

Nursing assistants provide routine care for patients under the direction of registered nurses or licensed vocational nurses and, so, augment the care provided by nurses. Because of the shortage of nurses, the aging of the general population, and the changing paradigms of hospital care delivery, the need for nursing assistants with acute-care experience is expected to increase. General accounting office workforce studies have shown that employee retention is increased when nursing assistants perceive the importance of their role in patient care. However, nursing assistants are seldom included in oncology education programs.

We designed the course, Care of the Oncology Patient, for nursing assistants to increase their knowledge of basic oncology practice so that they can best augment the care provided by registered nurses, work as an integral part of the healthcare team, and so improve the quality of care given to our patients. The Oncology Nursing Society standards of practice and core curriculum were our conceptual model.

To present very technical content in an understandable manner, we wrote the course material at a sixth-grade reading level. A total of 124 nursing assistants (in six groups) attended this 1.5-hour interactive course, which was taught by an oncology-certified nursing instructor. The goal was to teach nursing assistants to be able to define cancer, review oncology terminology, identify cancer treatments, discuss cell changes, review skin care for patients receiving radiation therapy, and identify the nursing assistants’ role in cancer care, pain management, and neutropenic precautions, discussing important information to report to nurses.

We evaluated this knowledge before and after the course. Among the 114 usable responses, there was a statistically significant increase in knowledge after the program.

Based on the responses, we expanded the course to an eight-hour monthly course. New topics include critical thinking for nursing assistants, nursing assistants rendering spiritual care, communication in the workforce, life gift, talking to the patient with cancer, and meeting the nurse counselors (who focus on self-care). This program may be a useful addition to other oncology units.