Survey of the State of Implementation of the American Society of Clinical Oncology/Oncology Nursing Society Safety Standards for Chemotherapy Administration in India.

Abstract

The American Society of Clinical Oncology and the Oncology Nursing Society have proposed a set of standards for safe chemotherapy administration. The state of implementation of these standards in oncologic practices in India is not understood properly. An anonymized survey was designed that consisted of items from all 37 standards that were described in the 2013 update of the standards. The survey was distributed via e-mail as well as in paper format among oncologists working in various oncology practices in the country. A standard was considered as fully implemented if more than 90% of the items beneath it had the most positive response (Yes/Always). Responses were obtained from 75 of 114 (65.8%) of the institutions surveyed. Only one institution had fully implemented the standards, whereas only six (8.0%) institutions had implemented more than 90% of the standards fully. The general chemotherapy administration-related domain was implemented fully by the least number of institutions. Although characteristics such as location, funding, and type of institution (teaching or not) failed to influence implementation rates, institutions of respondents who were aware of chemotherapy practice-related standards reported full implementation of a larger number of standards. Lack of national-level guidelines/policies was identified as the most common difficulty in implementing standards. This survey indicates that there is an urgent need to formulate national-level guidelines for safe chemotherapy administration.