Antineoplastic agents extravasation from peripheral intravenous line in children: A simple strategy for a safer nursing care

Abstract

Purpose: the antineoplastic agents infusion through peripheral lines may lead to several adverse events such as extravasation that is one of the most severe acute reactions of this sort of treatment. the extravasation prevention and management must be part of a safe and evidence-based nursing care. Due to this fact, two algorithms were developed with the purpose of guiding nursing care to children who undergo chemotherapy through peripheral line. the objectives of this study were to determine the content validity of both algorithms with pediatric oncology nurses in Brazil and United States of America, and to verify the agreement between the evaluations of both groups.Methods and Sample: A descriptive validation study was carried out through the Delphi Technique that has the following steps: development of the data collection instrument, application to the specialists, data analysis, algorithms' review, re-evaluation by the specialists, final data analysis and content validity determination.Results: the data analysis was descriptive and based on the specialists agreement consensus equal or higher than 80% in every step of the algorithms. the process showed that the agreement with both instruments ranged from 92.8% to 99.0%.Conclusion: the algorithms are valid for application in nursing care with the main purpose of preventing and managing the antineoplastic agents' extravasation. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.