| Title |
Differences in medication knowledge and risk of errors between graduating nursing students and working registered nurses: comparative study
|
|---|---|
| Published in |
BMC Health Services Research, November 2014
|
| DOI | 10.1186/s12913-014-0580-7 |
| Pubmed ID | |
| Authors |
Bjoerg O Simonsen, Gro K Daehlin, Inger Johansson, Per G Farup |
| Abstract |
BackgroundNurses experience insufficient medication knowledge; particularly in drug dose calculations, but also in drug management and pharmacology. The weak knowledge could be a result of deficiencies in the basic nursing education, or lack of continuing maintenance training during working years. The aim of this study was to compare the medication knowledge, certainty and risk of error between graduating bachelor students in nursing and experienced registered nurses.MethodsBachelor students in closing term and registered nurses with at least one year job experience underwent a multiple choice test in pharmacology, drug management and drug dose calculations: 3x14 questions with 3¿4 alternative answers (score 0¿42). Certainty of each answer was recorded with score 0¿3, 0¿1 indicating need for assistance. Risk of error was scored 1¿3, where 3 expressed high risk: being certain that a wrong answer was correct. The results are presented as mean and (SD).ResultsParticipants were 243 graduating students (including 29 men), aged 28.2 (7.6) years, and 203 registered nurses (including 16 men), aged 42.0 (9.3) years and with a working experience of 12.4 years (9.2). The knowledge among the nurses was found to be superior to that of the students: 68.9%(8.0) and 61.5%(7.8) correct answers, respectively, (p¿<¿0.001). The difference was largest in drug management and dose calculations. The improvement occurred during the first working year. The nurses expressed higher degree of certainty and the risk of error was lower, both overall and for each topic (p¿<¿0.01). Low risk of error was associated with high knowledge and high sense of coping (p¿<¿0.001).ConclusionsThe medication knowledge among experienced nurses was superior to bachelor students in nursing, but nevertheless insufficient. As much as 25% of the answers to the drug management questions would lead to high risk of error. More emphasis should be put into the basic nursing education and in the introduction to medication procedures in clinical practice to improve the nurses¿ medication knowledge and reduce the risk of error. |
X Demographics
The data shown below were collected from the profiles of 3 X users who shared this research output. Click here to find out more about how the information was compiled.
Geographical breakdown
| Country | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| United States | 2 | 67% |
| Unknown | 1 | 33% |
Demographic breakdown
| Type | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| Members of the public | 2 | 67% |
| Practitioners (doctors, other healthcare professionals) | 1 | 33% |
Mendeley readers
The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 157 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.
Geographical breakdown
| Country | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| Unknown | 157 | 100% |
Demographic breakdown
| Readers by professional status | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| Student > Bachelor | 33 | 21% |
| Student > Master | 25 | 16% |
| Student > Ph. D. Student | 10 | 6% |
| Student > Postgraduate | 8 | 5% |
| Professor | 7 | 4% |
| Other | 30 | 19% |
| Unknown | 44 | 28% |
| Readers by discipline | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| Nursing and Health Professions | 58 | 37% |
| Medicine and Dentistry | 16 | 10% |
| Pharmacology, Toxicology and Pharmaceutical Science | 8 | 5% |
| Business, Management and Accounting | 4 | 3% |
| Social Sciences | 3 | 2% |
| Other | 11 | 7% |
| Unknown | 57 | 36% |
Attention Score in Context
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 3. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 25 November 2014.
All research outputs
#14,027,062
of 23,881,329 outputs
Outputs from BMC Health Services Research
#4,791
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Outputs of similar age
#183,208
of 367,403 outputs
Outputs of similar age from BMC Health Services Research
#76
of 132 outputs
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