Nurses’ knowledge, perceptions, and behaviors regarding antineoplastic drugs: the mediating role of protective knowledge

Abstract

Abstract Objective To explore the relationships between Chinese nurses’ knowledge, perceptions, and attitudes and their behavior and actual implementation of safety measures when handling antineoplastic drugs (ADs) in their daily work. Methods This was a multisite study conducted in 8 public hospitals in China. A self-administered questionnaire was sent to participants querying the degree of contact with ADs. The hypothesized relations were explored using structural equation modelling via the bootstrap method. Mediation analysis was applied to explore the mediating role of protective knowledge regarding AD exposure on the associations among protective training, using warning labels, and using protective masks. Results A total of 305 nurses were enrolled. The average age of all participants was 30.2 (standard deviation [SD]: 6.2) years. Nurses who had received protective training for AD exposure were more likely to use labels for ADs after age, body mass index (BMI), length of service, marital status, education, and department were controlled as covariates. The bias-corrected bootstrap of 95% confidence interval (CI) indicated that protective knowledge significantly mediated (23.4%) the association between protective training and using labels (indirect effect = 0.202, 95% CI: 0.009, 0.495); the proportion of mediation was 23.4%. Protective knowledge significantly mediated the association between protective training and using protective masks (indirect effect = 0.157, 95% CI: 0.048, 0.325); the proportion of mediation was 27.2%. Conclusions The findings of this study have provided baseline information on the current state of Chinese nurses’ perceptions, knowledge, and preventive behaviors toward ADs as the crisis is happening. Training is also recommended to improve nurses’ perceptions of the risks associated with ADs.