Effect of a clinical instructional intervention on nurses’ perception and practice toward medication errors

Abstract

Abstract: Drug errors occur in different steps of the drug process but many errors occur during the administration of the drug, the nurses play a pillar of the tent in risk reduction of medication errors because they are in excellent position than any other health team providers to detect and report medication errors. Aim was to examine the effect of clinical instruction intervention on nurses’ perception and practice toward medication errors. Research design: a quasi -experimental design was used. Setting: was conducted in different wards (General surgical wards, medical wards, chest& heart ward and CCU) at Ain Shams University Hospitals Cairo, Egypt. Sample: A convenient sample consist of (38) nurses providing direct patient’s medication administration. Tools: three tools used to collect data are the following: 1) characteristics of the studied sample, 2) the Modified Gladstone’s Scale of Medication Errors, (3) Medication Administration Rights Observation Checklist. Results: revealed that there was statistical significant improvement of nurses’ perception and practice toward medication errors. Conclusion: Implemented of clinical instruction intervention of medication errors was effective in improves level of nurses’ perception and practice toward medication errors. Recommendations: the study recommended that, designed and established an integrated educational unit on medication errors in the curricula of nursing student and clarify a proper mechanism and administrative system in the way to deal with the medication errors resulting from the health team. Keywords: medication errors- medication administration - nurses’ perception.