Introduction:
Nausea and vomiting are common and troubling side effects of chemotherapy, adversely impacting cancer therapy and quality of life. Despite advances in care, effective CINV management remains challenging with up to 82% of patients receiving MEC or HEC experiencing delayed nausea despite receiving antiemetics.
Objectives:
To evaluate the effectiveness of an online learning activity to advance CINV management by oncology nurses and pharmacists.
Methods:
A multidisciplinary education committee developed the educational activity with an independent education provider. The accredited activity is available to all registered Australian healthcare professionals (HCPs) at www.care.mundipharma.com.au The activity consists of three modules focusing on understanding CINV and barriers to optimised care; antiemetics and CINV guidelines; case studies to operationalise key principles.
Results:
A total of 155 HCPs have commenced the activity and 84 (65.5% nurses and 23.8% pharmacists) have completed it. 35.7% of participants had < 10 years clinical experience.
The activity was pitched at the correct level with 86.9% indicating that the activity “Entirely met” their learning objectives and 84.5% indicating the activity was “Entirely relevant” to their clinical practice.
The most challenging aspect of CINV management as rated by the participants was delayed CINV and as a result of undertaking this activity, confidence levels (“Confident” or “Very confident”) in managing delayed CINV increased from 24.5% pre-activity to 65.5% post-activity (P<0.001).
Conclusion:
Despite advances in antiemetic therapy, many patients continue to experience troublesome CINV. Online education on CINV and its management is improving nurse and pharmacist knowledge and confidence to manage CINV.