METHODS
The semi-experimental and longitudinal study was carried out with 30 children aged eight to 18 years
and their mothers in the pediatric oncology clinics at a university hospital. Data were collected with
Survey Form, World Health Organization Oral Mucositis Index, and Children"s International Mucositis
Evaluation Scale. Children and mothers in the intervention group received oral health care education
before chemotherapy. Children"s oral health was assessed before chemotherapy (0th day) and following
chemotherapy 7th, 14th, and 21st days. Data were analyzed with descriptive statistics, Mann-Whitney
U test, Friedman Test.
RESULTS
The socio-demographic characteristics of the children did not affect children"s oral mucositis severity. It
was determined a significant difference in the severity of oral mucositis between the control and intervention
group (p<0.05). Oral mucositis"s degree and scores were lower in the intervention groups than the
control group on the 7th day of chemotherapy.
CONCLUSION
The findings obtained in this study suggest that oral health care education is an effective method to
reduce the severity of oral mucositis in pediatric oncology patients. It is recommended that oral health
care education should be given to children and their parents from the beginning of hospitalization.
Keywords: Chemotherapy; education; nursing; oral mucositis; pediatric oncology
Despite advances in cancer treatment, chemotherapy
is the most used first option for the type of cancer
treatment.[
Oral mucositis is a process leading to disruption
in the oral mucosa, erythema, and ulcerative lesions,
which are most common in pediatric oncology patients
receiving chemotherapy.[
Nurses should follow evidence-based practices on
the subject, to make appropriate interventions according
to their planned nursing diagnosis, to monitor and
evaluate patients at regular intervals to prevent oral
mucositis or to care for its occurrence.[
Hypothesis
H1; Oral health education which is given to pediatric
oncology patients and mothers reduce the severity
of oral mucositis.
H0; Oral health education which is given to pediatric
oncology patients and mothers does not reduce the
severity of oral mucositis.
This semi-experimental and longitudinal study was carried out at the pediatric oncology unit of a university hospital in Edirne, on the northwest of Turkey, between December 2016 and March 2018. It is the only hospital in the Thrace region with a pediatric oncology clinic.
The study population consisted of 8-18 years old
children who received chemotherapy treatment. Based
on the means and standard deviations oral mucositis
scores in the study of Yavuz and Bal Yılmaz (2015), the
sample calculation was made in the G*Power analysis
(3.1.9.4) program.[
The including criteria of this study were 8-18 years
old patients who received chemotherapy treatment;
who had a literacy; who had no oral health problem, no
neurodevelopmental delays, verbal difficulties, hearing
or visual impairments; had no history of dental oral
problem.
Ethical Considerations
Data Collection Tools
Survey Form: This form was developed by the researchers
as a result of the literature review: 11 questions
including socio-demographic characteristics of
mothers and children (e.g., age, education level, family
structure, family income level and number of children),
11 questions, including oral care and oral mucositis
care applications, and the form consists of 22
questions.
World Health Organization (WHO) Oral Mucositis
Index: This index is created specifically to measure
changes in the grades of oral mucositis related
to chemotherapy.[
Children"s International Mucositis Evaluation Scale
(ChIMES): The scale was developed by Tomlinson et
al. (2010) for determining the presence/absence of mucositis
in the mouth of children who received chemotherapy
[
Data Collection Procedure
Children were included in the groups according to
their hospitalization line. Children whose hospitalization
line was odd numbers were included in the control
group and whose were double numbers were included
in the intervention group.
This study was conducted in three steps.
First Step for all Children: The researchers regularly
interviewed to chemotherapy nurse to determine
chemotherapy day of children. Children were evaluated
according to the inclusion criteria by researchers
(RS, ENK) before the initiation of chemotherapy (0th
day). Eligible children were included in this study. Data
were collected face to face interview by "Survey Form"
from all children and their mothers in children's private
room at the pediatric oncology unit. All children's
mouth was evaluated by "WHO Oral Mucositis Index"
and "ChIMES. It took 10-15 minutes to complete the
data collection tools.
All children and their mothers were administered
standard oral care by chemotherapy nurse (FY) during
hospitalization.
Standard Oral Care: The standard oral care of pediatric
oncology unit was administered to all children
by chemotherapy nurse (FY). The standard care was
administered to both children and their mothers for
daily mouth care. This care included tooth brushing,
mouthwash with sodium bicarbonate solution, preparation
of sodium bicarbonate solution, oral care with
0.2% chlorhexidine.
Second Steps for Intervention Group: In additionally
standard care, children in the intervention group
and their mothers received "Oral health care education
for preventing chemotherapy-induced oral mucositis"
by the researcher (RS). The same researcher provided
education to all children and their mothers in the intervention
group. While the education was given to
the mothers in the playroom in the pediatric oncology
clinic, the children were given their rooms. The
training was given to the mothers separately because
the pictures in the presentations could be frightening
and stressful for the children. Training took about 20-
30 minutes. After the presentation, children and their mothers were allowed to ask questions about the topics
which they did not understand.
Third Steps for all Children: All children"s mouth
evaluated 0th, 7th, 14th and 21st days of chemotherapy
with "WHO Oral Mucositis Index" and "ChIMES" by the
researchers (RS, ENK).
Data Analysis
Ethics committee permission was taken Trakya University
Ethical Committee of the Faculty of Medicine
(Permission no: 21/16) and institution permission
was given from the Department of Pediatric Oncology
(Permission no: E-105264). This study"s aim and
the method was explained to mothers and children
before this study. The written consent was obtained by
the parents and also, verbal assents were obtained by
the children. If they did not want to continue working,
they were informed that they could withdraw from this
study without any reason.
The sociodemographic data were collected from the
children and their mothers with a survey form. The oral mucositis degree was evaluated by the children
self-report using World Health Organization Oral Mucositis
Index and Children"s International Mucositis
Evaluation Scale (ChIMES).
Before this study, researchers prepared "Oral health care
for the prevention of chemotherapy-induced oral mucositis"
presentation with a PowerPoint program for pediatric
oncology patients and their mothers separately.
Seven experts opinions who were nurses (5) and doctors
(2) specialized in pediatric oncology were given for
confirming the content of the presentations. The content
of the presentation was prepared according to the recommendations of the guidelines.[
Data were analyzed using SPSS 23 package program
(Statistical Package for the Social Science). Descriptive
statistics which are mean, standard deviation, frequency
and percentage were used analysis of independent
variables. The distribution of continuous variables
was analyzed using the Shapiro Wilks test. The Friedman
test was used for the comparison of independent
and dependent variables. Mann-Whitney U test was
used for evaluating the source of differences. The results
were evaluated in a confidence interval of 95%,
and p<0.05 was considered significant.
The mean age of the mothers was 39.53 ± 5.68 years in the control group, 40.80 ± 5.89 years in the intervention group. More of the mothers graduated from high school (53.3% of control; 40.0% of intervention). All of the mothers were unemployed. Both groups, most of them were nuclear families and had moderate income.
It was found that 66.7% of the control group and 53.3% of the intervention group brush their teeth twice times in a day, most of the children practice oral care four times in a day (93.3% of control; 86.7% of intervention). All of the children received information about mouth care from nurses; however, only half of them received information about oral mucositis from nurses (66.7% of control; 53.3% of intervention).
Mucositis Severity of children
Children's level of oral mucositis was evaluated with
the WHO Oral Mucositis Index, there was a significant
difference among groups (p<0.001). The difference was
found that children in control group (Table
Children"s level of oral mucositis was evaluated
with ChIMES, there was a significant difference among
groups (p=0.005). The significant difference was found
in the control group (Table
This is widely accepted that oral care is a significant
complement to the prevention, severity and management
of oral mucositis.[
In this study, the findings showed that children
in the intervention group had a lower severity of oral
mucositis than the control group on 7th chemotherapy
day. Oral mucous membranes are usually damaged
between seven and fourteen days following cytotoxic
therapy by the subjective complaint of pain, burning
sensation or sorrow.[
While oral mucositis is not a life-threatening complication,
it has a significant impact on children's clinic
features and may have a wide range of physical and
psychosocial consequences for patients.[
This study had some limitations. Firstly, this study
was performed within a single centre. Secondly, all
of the pediatric cancer types and all treatment types
which may influence different symptom were included
in this study, maybe future study may be limited with
some protocols or diseases. Despite these limitations,
the study" effect size is high d=1.98. Therefore, study
results provide important baseline information about
the effects of oral health care for reducing the severity
of oral mucositis.
Acknowledgments: We also thankful to the pediatric oncology healthcare professionals for their collaborations.
Peer-review: Externally peer-reviewed.
Conflict of Interest: All authors declared no conflict of interest. Ethics Committee Approval: Ethics committee permission was taken Trakya University Ethical Committee of the Faculty of Medicine (Permission no: 21/16).
Financial Support: The authors have no funding or conflicts of interest to disclose.
Authorship contributions: Concept - R.S; Design - R.S; M.A.K.; Supervision - R.S; E.N.K; Materials - R.S; E.N.K ; Data collection &/or processing - R.S; E.N.K; F.Y. ; Analysis and/or interpretation - R.S; M.A.K; Literature search - R.S; E.N.K; Writing - R.S; M.A.K; Critical review - M.A.K; T.E.