Introduction: The Cooperative Palliative Care Nursing Research Group, created in 2002, as first work, decided to start a descrptive study on the clinical practice of the subcutaneous route of administration of drug and fluid in far advanced cancer. The nursing professionals are the responsibles of the care of all the aspects realated to the administration of drugs and fluids in the advanced patient. Nurses should to know the indications, proper use and care of this route.The published data from this knowledge is very scarcy.
Objectives: To know the specific nursing practices related to the SC use in the advenced patient with cancer in Catalonia.
Method: Multicentric study, quantitative, descriptive and observational with transversal recruitment and longitudinal follow-up of all the SC catheters placed during two weeks period and observed until its withdrawal.
Findings: Thirty-eigth nursing teams have participated from different parts of Catalonia. The 65.8% of the teams work with and specific SC protocol.The prefered type of catheter was metallic in the 71.1% of the teams. In the period of the study 242 catheters were assessed. The mean duration was 5.2 days and the reason of withdrawal were: death 29.2%, erythema 15.2%, and indurations 11.3%. In the 92.9% of the cases the indication was for drug administration. The 3 more frequent drugs were: morphine 33.4%, midazolam 17.4% and haloperidol 12.6%. The main places of injection were arms (37.2%) and infraclavicular zone (34.7%).The more used antiseptic was alcohol in 54%.
Conclusions: This multicenter research give us to have clear knowledge about the real practice of palliative care nursing and allows to provide basal data for future research projects related to subcutaneous administration. in other way, this cooperative experience has promoted a positive vision of research in Palliative care nursing.