Cardio-Oncologic Knowledge of Nurses in the Oncology Service: A Multi-Center Survey in China

Elucidation of the cardio-oncologic knowledge among the oncology nurses of tertiary hospitals in Shanxi Province to provide better insights and directions for management by nursing managers.

China's National Health and Wellness Commission issued the Action Plan for Further Improving Nursing Services in June 2023, which requires nurses to provide patients with physical and mental holistic nursing services, such as medical care, condition observation, assistance with treatment, and health guidance. Most oncology patients are treated with chemotherapy, but the modality can cause greater harm to patients, especially cardiotoxicity. How to provide precise care for chemotherapy patients is a problem for nursing managers.

In order to investigate the level of cardio-oncologic knowledge among the oncology nurses of tertiary care hospitals in Shanxi Province, China, a questionnaire was created based on the relevant literature and the provided instructions on cardio-oncology. The chi-squared test was performed for multiple comparisons of the level of knowledge of disease observation, health guidance, and implementation of treatment. Spearman correlation analysis was performed to analyze the correlation between the levels of cardio-oncologic knowledge and general information of hospitals and nurses.

Cardio-oncology awareness among the oncology nurses was 0.1%-44.7%, the awareness rate of single dimension was 0 to 3.9%, and overall awareness rate was 0. A partially significant difference was revealed in the two-by-two comparisons of the awareness rates of the three dimensions of disease observation, health guidance, and implementation of treatment (P < 0.05). A correlation was observed between the cardio-oncologic knowledge and some of the hospital and the nurses' general information data (P < 0.05).

Oncology nurses exhibited a low rate of awareness related to cardio-oncology. Hospitals could establish oncology nursing teams to train the oncology nurses to promote their cardio-oncologic knowledge and ensure the quality of daily care provided by these nurses.