The Relationship between Infection Prevention Behaviors and Barriers among Cancer Patients Undergoing Chemotherapy

항암화학요법을 받는 암환자의 감염예방 행위와 장애요인의 관계

Purpose: This study was to assess the degree of infection prevention behaviors at home, and a relationship between those behaviors and barrier factors among cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy. Method: The data were collected from 92 cancer patients who were undergoing chemotherapy with more than two kinds of immunosuppressive agents at G university hospital in J city from February 17 to April 4, 2003. The instruments were the infection prevention behavior scale developed by researchers and the barrier factor scale by Gu et al. (2003). The data were analysed using mean, standard deviation, t-test, ANOVA, and Pearson's correlation coefficient by SPSS program. Results: The mean score of the behaviors for infection prevention was 2.61 of 4. The highest score was on the subscale 'rest and exercise', and the lowest score was on the subscale 'monitoring sign and symptom of infection'. And a negative correlation(r= -.208, p= .023) was found between infection prevention behaviors and barrier factors. The barriers correlated to infection prevention behaviors were mainly 'no habits' and 'no interest'. Conclusion: It seems that the degree of the behaviors for infection prevention was not performed enough to prevent infection among cancer patients. And there was negative relationship between infection prevention behaviors and barriers. We suggest to develop a nursing intervention program to enhance infection prevention behaviors through reducing the barrier factors.