Patient Safety in Administering Antineoplastic Chemoteraphy: an Integrative Review

Abstract

Introduction: Patient’s safety can be defined as reducing unnecessary damage, which can occur, associated with health care to a minimum acceptable risk. Errors in one or more steps in the process of chemotherapy can have serious consequences for patients, ranging from unexpected toxicities to death. Objective: Identify in the recommended literature strategies aimed at patient safety in administering antineoplastic chemotherapy. Method: this is an integrative literature review that used the following inclusion criteria: publications in Portuguese, English and Spanish, available for free on the CINAHL and PUBMED databases in full texts in the period of 2000 - 2013. Results: The search resulted in 1385 publications, and selected 13 international scientific publications that met the study objective. Discussion: In the analyzed articles, the authors emphasize the protocols, procedures and chemotherapy administration process, establishing unique behaviors, clearly, to maintain safety at all stages. Conclusion: The use of good practices is not enough to prevent the failures or errors in administering chemotherapeutic drugs. It becomes necessary to create a safety culture focused on sharing responsibility and implementing institutional policies and standards, in order to improve safety, both elaborated from a multidisciplinary team with interdisciplinary features.