Is Structured Teaching Programme (STP) Effective in Assessing patients’ Knowledge of Side Effects of Radiation Therapy and their Management? A Quasi-Experimental Study

Abstract

Introduction: Radiation therapy has become the common therapeutic treatment for cancer patients by limiting in destroying healthy tissue surrounding the cancerous cells though it has certain specific side effects that affects the body parts. Inadequate and negligence in managing the side effects may hinder the treatment process as treating side effects is one of the important part of cancer treatment. Objective: to check the effect of the STP on the side effects of radiation therapy and management among cancer patients receiving Radiation Therapy. 2. Assessing the level of pre-test and post-test scores on knowledge of cancer patients regarding the side effects of radiation therapy and management. 3.Association between posttest knowledge scores with selected demographic variables. Method: adopted Quasi-Experimental quantitative research approach. Sample was patient undergoing radiation therapy (n=60) using Purposive sampling technique RESULT: The study revealed that in pretest Inadequate knowledge 32 (53%), moderately adequate 25(42%) and had 3 (5%) adequate level of knowledge whereas Inadequate level of knowledge were found nil in posttest, moderately adequate 16 (27%) and adequate level of knowledge 44 (73%) in posttest. The study revealed that the pretest mean is 11.17 & with standard deviation of 3.97 whereas posttest was mean 22.80 and 3.16 standard deviation. ‘t’ value calculated (26.94), where it is higher than that of table‘t’ value 3.65 at the significance level of (p<0.001). So, Structured Teaching Programme was found effective. Conclusion: Educating radiation therapy side effects and its management helps patients in coping up with it and prevent further risk in developing the late complications and improve the quality of life. Nurses are the key role in making efforts to provide information to patients which help to relieve or prevent the side effects and manage it accordingly.