The realm of oncology nursing is contemplated as holistic nursing approach encompassing care, compassion and concern. Attitude of nurses play a pivotal role in accelerating quality of life of cancer patients, no matter to what stage their disease has progressed. Indeed a nurse plays multifaceted role in caring for an individual with grave illness, therefore, reinforcement regarding education to patients and their caregivers about diagnosis and treatment options becomes a mandate. The purpose of this study is to explore attitude of oncology nurses towards cancer diagnosis and its prognosis and help nursing staff to reflect their own attitude and analyze its impact on care provision to patient and their families.

OBJECTIVES:

The objectives of the study are to determine the attitude of nurses towards cancer, identify precipitating factors towards specific attitude as identified during study, and investigate strategies for improvement in nursing practice.

METHODOLOGY:

It will be an explorative descriptive study design, adopting a cross sectional survey method and entire RN population will be taken from oncology units of a tertiary care university hospital. A questioner will be distributed among study subjects. This self developed tool comprises of numerous statements derived from Cancer Attitude Questionnaire by Lebovits et al.

ANALYSIS AND RESULTS:

Findings will enable development of strategies to enhance and reinforce positive attitude towards cancer among oncology nurses and to improve nursing knowledge, attitude and practice that will result in holistic care for cancer patients and their families.

CONCLUSION:

Nurses' attitudes towards patient with oncology disorders vary which eventually impact the care provision. Findings would determine attitude of a vital task force of health care team members. Analyzing own behaviors would give rise to implementation of strategies that could reinforce them towards care to cancer patients with a constructive outlook, thus enhancing delivery of quality patient care.