Knowledge and Practice of Patients with Breast Cancer about Complication of Chemotherapy

Background: In this study we evaluated the knowledge and practice of patients with breast cancer about com plication of chemotherapy referred to chemotherapy ward of Nemazee Hospital in Shiraz, Shiraz Prov ince, Iran, in 2004. Methods: Forty patients suffering breast cancer and under chemotherapy, were selected with a simple ran dom sampling method. All were interviewed and a questionnaire was completed for each by trained inter viewers. Results: Overall correct responded answers were 30% in knowledge part and 53% in the practice part. There was no relation between knowledge and practice of patients with demographic variables (P > 0.05). Con sidering the episodes of chemotherapy, only in the knowledge part the women who were attend ing to receive third episode of chemotherapy had more awareness (P < 0.004). The sources of pa tientsʹ informa tion in this regard were as fallows: 18% by nurses, 82% by themselves and 0% by physi cians. Conclusion: According to the results, it seems that unfortunately there is not effective education about che motherapy complication, because their knowledge and practice were not in acceptable level. Con-sider ing the importance of this subject, it is needed to having educational program for patients to im prove patientsʹ ability and skills for coping chemotherapy and its side effect as well as adapting ill-ness