NURSES' KNOWLEDGE AND PRACTICES ABOUT ORAL MUCOSITIS OF CANCER PATIENTS UNDERGOING CHEMOTHERAPY IN SULAIMANI CITY/IRAQ

Abstract

Oral health care is a crucial aspect of oncology nursing practice; therefore, this study was conducted to evaluate oncology nurses’ knowledge and practice with oral mucositis (OM) of cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy. One hundred nurses were participated from Hiwa and Shahid Shaswari Garmian hospitals, in addition to a demographic, a questionnaire was designed and constructed by the researcher to assess the nurse’s knowledge and practice through the mucositis undergoing chemotherapy. The mean age of participants was 32.15±7.63 years, 53% of nurses were males 67% of them held a Diploma degree in nursing, while 55% had (1-5) years of experience in oncology field. in addition to (78%) of participants lived in Sulaimaniah city.  Finally, 84% of the participants received education program regarding oral mucositis. The Oncology nurses had good levels of knowledge in topics related to anatomy of oral cavity (64%), Pathology of oral cavity with oral mucositis patients (73.59%) and a significant differences were found between Nurses practice on mucositis of oral cavity and  age , level of academic qualification , years of experience in oncology field  and nurses were received education program regarding oral mucositis(p<0.05).Good levels of Nurses' knowledge directly affected on good level of their Practice.