Nurses Application of Safety Measures Related to Medication Administration

Abstract

Safety measures are activities and precautions taken to improve safety, i.e. reduces risk related to human health. Medication Safety, which refers to a dockside-to-bedside medication administration strategy, designed to ensure the “rights” as right patient, right medication, right dose, right route and right time. Medication Administration is a basic entry level of competency, Safe medication administration requires knowledge of pharmacology, patient assessment, standards and institutional policies, skills in various forms of administration and judgment around safe medication practices

This study aims to asses nurses' application of safety measures related to medication administration through: Identifying nurses' knowledge regarding safety measures of medication administration. Assessing nurses' performance of safety measures regarding medication administration. Finding out the relationship between nurses’ knowledge and their performance of safety measures regarding medication administration.

The study subjects include sixty eight nurses who working in the medical and surgical departments at Nasser City police hospital, which affiliated to the Ministry of Entry. Two tools of data collection were used to carry out this study. (1) Self-administrated questionnaire sheet: which divided into two parts; Part1: demographic data of the study subject, such as age, sex, qualification, years of experience, attending training courses about administering medication, attending training courses about patient safety. Part2:It will be consist of multiple choice questions to assess nurses' knowledge regarding safety measures of medication administration. It includes different dimensions as: universal safety measures, patient rights, preparation of medication, and medication documentation. (2) An observation checklist: It aims at assessing nurses' application of safety measures regarding medication administration routes.

The present study revealed that the following main results: • As regards to nurses’ knowledge of safety measures related to medication administration, more than half of the study subjects had an unsatisfactory knowledge, regarding (Universal Safety measures, General medication knowledge, Patient rights, the nurse rules for the medication cupboard, Medication routs, Medication documentation, Hospital Medication policy). • Also two third of study subject had unsatisfactory knowledge, regarding (Medication order, Medication preparation, Medication calculation, The names of medical groups, Infection control procedures, Ways of fluid drops account, Receiving medication, Recording and reporting the therapeutic errors). • Less than half of the study subject had satisfactory knowledge, regarding (Medication administration). • Less than half of the study subjects had an average level of total knowledge about safety measures related to medication administration. • As regards to nurses’ performance related to the basic steps of medication administration, the majority of nurses had adequate performance related to pre- procedure, more than half of staff nurses had inadequate performance