Background: The safe, principled, and standard handling of anticancer drugs can reduce the effects of occupational exposure and promote safe behaviors in nurses. Thus, the present study aimed to determine the effects of standard guidelines education on the safe handling of anti-neoplasm drugs among oncology nurses in Ardabil, Iran.Methods: The quasi-experimental study with one-group pretest-posttest design was performed among 32 nurses employed in the oncology wards of two educational hospitals in Ardabil city, during 2020. All of the nurses in the wards who met the inclusion criteria participated in the study. The data were collected by using a demographic information form and nurses' knowledge assessment questionnaire regarding the standard guidelines for working with antineoplastic drugs, and a standard checklist for examining their performance in this regard. Then, they were analyzed through descriptive (mean and standard deviation) and inferential statistics (t-test and Pearson's correlation coefficient) in SPSS 22.Results: The mean and standard deviation of the knowledge and performance scores of the oncology nurses was respectively determined 59.56±6.41 and 18.96±2.54, which changed to 66±4.82 and 32.03±2.45 three months after training. The results of t-test represented a statistically significant difference between the level of knowledge and performance before and after the intervention (P=0.001).Conclusions: Based on the results, the standard guidelines education improved the nurses' knowledge and performance on the safe handling of anticancer drugs in the chemotherapy wards. Therefore, it is suggested to pay attention to the promotion of the oncology nurses' awareness in the planning and policy-making of healthcare centers.