A Study to Assess the Effectiveness of Ice Cube Application on Oral Mucositis, Associated with Injection 5 – Flurouracil among Cancer patients in Amala Cancer Centre and Research Institute at Trichur District.

Abstract

Cells are the building blocks of our body, the dreaded disease cancer begins from these cells. Cancer is not just one disease but many diseases. There are more than 100 different types of cancer. As cancer is one of the leading cause of mortality and morbidity globally leads to long hospital stays, higher cost of treatments with various side effects causing huge burden to the family and reduces the quality of life. Among side effects of chemotherapy oral mucositis is an important and big burden to the patient. Hence the researcher planned to conduct a research study to asses the effectiveness of ice cube application on oral mucositis associated with injection 5 Flurouracil among cancer patients. OBJECTIVES: 1. To assess the severity of oral mucositis associated with injection 5-flurouracil among cancer patients in experimental and control group. 2. To evaluate the effectiveness of ice cube application on oral mucositis associated with injection 5-Flurouracil in experimental and control group. 3. To determine the association between the post level severity of oral mucositis associated with injection 5-Flurouracil among cancer patients with their selected demographic variables in experimental and control group. The study was conducted in Amala cancer center and research institute, Thrissur. In this study Quasi experimental; research design was adopted with non randamaised purposive sampling technique. The sample size was 60. The data collection tool consists of demographic variables and oral mucositis assessment scale and visual analogue pain scale. The intervention is done with oral ice cubes 5 minutes prior to, 5 minutes during and 20 minutes after chemotherapy. CONCLUSION: The main conclusion drawn from the study was the practice of oral ice cube application is helpful in reducing the severity of oral mucositis. This result can potentially employed as one of the complementary therapy in the reduction of severity of oral mucositis associated with chemotherapy with inj-5 flurouracil. After the application of ice cubes orally, the subjects found themselves comfort and expressed satisfaction