The Effect of Progressive Muscle Relaxation on the Dosage of Antiemetic Drugs in Cancer Patients Undergoing Chemotherapy

Some drugs are not effective merely in nausea and vomiting induced chemotherapy control, and increasing their usage causes undesirable effects. Pharmalogical–nonpharmalogical methods lead to a higher control on direct side-effects in comparison with traditional treatments. Furthermore, these combined methods decrease the amount of drug consumption and related severe results. The main goal of the present report was to assess the effect of progressive muscle relaxation (PMR) on the dosage of antiemetic drugs in cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy. This study is a quasi-experimental one which was carried out on 61 patients regarding the corresponding sampling characteristics. The samples were divided randomly into two groups of case and control. The case group was trained PMR technique in the first period of chemotherapy. The performance of the technique continued with an educational cassette twice a day in the first period, after (at home about 3 weeks) and second period of chemotherapy. The control group used the routine care at the same period. The amounts of prescribed antiemetic drugs to patients and times of the PMR technique were recorded in the two periods of chemotherapy. The mean dosage intravenouse metoclopramide (t=3.5, p=0.001) and oral antiacid (t=2.3, p=0.02) by paired t-test revealed the presence of a significant difference for case group and non-significant discrepancy for control group (p>0.05) over the two periods of chemotherapy. Moreover, the mean dosage intravenouse with independent t-test confirmed a significant difference between control and case groups in the second period of chemotherapy (t=2.06, p=0.04). However, the mean dosage granisetron and dexamethasone drugs did not show any significant difference between control and case groups in two the periods at the research (p>0.05). The results indicated that PMR effectively decreased the amount of dosage antiemetic drugs specially metoclopramide in cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy. According to the findings, it is recommended that nurses use PMR as a nursing care for the related patients.