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

Nurses play a substantial role in the prevention and management of chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting (CINV).

This study set out to describe nurses' roles in the prevention and management of CINV and to identify any gaps that exist across countries.

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.

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.

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.

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.