Effectiveness and efficiency of nurse-given cancer patient education

Increasing health care costs make it imperative that nurse-given cancer education programs be evaluated according to their economic effectiveness and efficiency. The purpose of this research was the comparison of two programs of nurse-given education at a Canadian cancer centre examining patients' knowledge of chemotherapy and associated side effects, the number of self-care behaviours for side effects, the degree of extra health resource utilization, patient and nurse satisfaction with teaching programs, and the nursing time needed for teaching. Results show that the experimental intervention is more effective and more efficient than the usual well-organized patient education program at this centre. These study findings begin to address the knowledge gap regarding the cost-effectiveness of a critical component of ambulatory cancer nursing.