Implementation of a prechemotherapy educational intervention.

Traditionally, patients have received chemotherapy education in the clinical setting during the first chemotherapy treatment. Nurses long have been aware that patients are anxious and overwhelmed on that first chemotherapy day and have noted a lack of retention of information. This article describes a prechemotherapy education project initiated at an urban cancer clinic in the midwestern United States. The project was created in an effort to alleviate some of the anxiety associated with the first chemotherapy experience.