Nurses' Perceived Skills and Attitudes About Updated Safety Concepts: Impact on Medication Administration Errors and Practices

What to learn from analysis of medical disputes related to medication errors in nursing care

BACKGROUND

Nurses, who are the last safeguard against and have the final opportunity to prevent medication errors (MEs), play a vital role in patient safety by managing medications.

OBJECTIVE

This study described the characteristics of medical dispute cases, medication information, and stage and types of MEs in Korea.

METHODS

We performed a descriptive analysis of 27 medical dispute cases related to MEs in nursing care in Korea.

RESULTS

Around 77.7% of patients suffered serious harm or died due to MEs in this study. The types of medications included anxiolytics and analgesics, and 51.9% of them were high-alert medications. Among cases of administration errors, failure to patient assessment before and after administration was the most common error followed by administering the wrong dose.

CONCLUSION

Nurses should perform their duties to ensure safety and improve the quality of nursing care by monitoring patients after administering medications and should be prepared to take quick action to reduce harm.

Percepción de la administración segura de medicamentos en atención primaria

Objetivo

El propósito de este estudio fue conocer la percepción de enfermeras sobre la seguridad en la preparación y administración de medicamentos en un departamento de salud de atención primaria del Sistema Nacional de Salud de España.

Diseño

Estudio descriptivo transversal.

Sitio

Realizado en el Departamento de Salud 21 (Alicante-España) en los meses de septiembre hasta noviembre del 2021.

Participantes

Sesenta y seis enfermeras, con predominio de mujeres (88,9%).

Intervenciones

Se utilizó una entrevista semiestructurada con 10 preguntas. El criterio de inclusión tuvo en cuenta las enfermeras con más de dos años de experiencia trabajando en el centro de salud.

Medidas principales

Se evaluó la percepción de las enfermeras sobre el grado de seguridad en la preparación y administración de medicamentos.

Resultados

El 81,9% de la muestra no notifican los eventos adversos. Los pasos para la administración segura fueron variados. Se observó asociación significativa en la hora correcta de la medicación (p < 0,031) y la antisepsia (p < 0,026), según el número de enfermeras en las zonas básicas de salud.

Conclusión

Nuestros resultados indican las percepciones de enfermeras sobre mejoras en el grado de implementación de estándares o herramientas para la administración segura de medicamentos, con especial atención en la falta de conocimientos, la sobrecarga asistencial (elevada ratio paciente/enfermera) y los dilemas asociados con la notificación.

Assessing Nursing Students' Self-Perceptions about Safe Medication Management: Design and Validation of a Tool, the NURSPeM

Objective: The objective was to design and validate a tool for assessing nursing students’ self-perceptions about safe medication management. Methods: A descriptive instrumental study was conducted involving construct definition, development of the tool, analysis of the content validity, and psychometric evaluation. Consensus regarding the content was obtained through a two-round Delphi process, and the resulting tool (the NURSPeM) was administered to nursing students to examine its internal consistency, temporal stability, and construct validity, the latter through exploratory factor analysis. Results: Thirteen experts participated in the Delphi process, which yielded a tool comprising two questionnaires: (1) Self-perceptions about safe medication management (27 items) and (2) the frequency and learning of drug-dose calculation (13 items). The tool’s psychometric properties were then examined based on responses from 559 nursing students. This analysis led to the elimination of three items from questionnaire 1, leaving a total of 24 items distributed across seven dimensions. All 13 items in questionnaire 2 were retained. Both questionnaires showed good internal consistency (Cronbach’s alpha = 0.894 and 0.893, respectively) and temporal stability (ICC = 0.894 and 0.846, respectively). Conclusions: The NURSPeM is a valid and reliable tool for assessing nursing students’ self-perceptions about safe medication management. It may be used to identify areas in which their training needs to be enhanced, and to evaluate the subsequent impact of new teaching initiatives.

Spanish Version of the Scale "Eventos Adversos Associados às Práticas de Enfermagem" (EAAPE): Validation in Nursing Students

Healthcare carried out by different health professionals, including nurses, implies the possible appearance of adverse events that affect the safety of the patient and may cause damage to the patient. In clinical practice, it is necessary to have measurement instruments that allow for the evaluation of the presence of these types of events in order to prevent them. This study aims to validate the "Eventos adversos associados às práticas de enfermagem" (EAAPE) scale in Spanish and evaluate its reliability. The validation was carried out through a cross-sectional study with a sample of 337 nursing students from the University of Valencia recruited during the 2018-19 academic year. An exploratory factor analysis was carried out using principal components and varimax rotation. The factor analysis extracted two factors that explained 32.10% of the total variance. Factor 1 explains 22.19% and refers to the "adverse results" of clinical practice (29 items), and factor 2 explains 9.62% and refers to "preventive practices" (24 items). Both factors presented high reliability (Cronbach's alpha 0.902 and 0.905, respectively). The Spanish version of the EAAPE is valid and reliable for measuring the perception of adverse events associated with nursing practice and the presence of prevention measures.

Development and Validation of the Safe Parenteral Medication Administration Self-Efficacy Scale

BACKGROUND

This study aimed to develop a valid and reliable measurement instrument for determining the self-efficacy perceptions of nurses concerning safe medication practices.

METHOD

The study was conducted at the hospital of a state university in Istanbul, Turkey, between August and December 2016. The sample consisted of 278 nurses.

RESULTS

The exploratory factor analysis indicated the scale had a single-factor structure that explained 47.92% of the total variance. The remaining 76 items had factor loads ranging from .50 to .87. The item-total correlations varied between .49 and .86, and Cronbach's alpha coefficient for the scale was .98.

CONCLUSION

The results of the analysis show the items constituting the scale have validity and reliability criteria that can measure the self-efficacy of nurses related to parenteral medication administration. [J Contin Educ Nurs. 2021;52(6):267-273.].

Medication administration errors: A concept analysis

AIM

To provide an analysis of the concept of medication errors that occur during the nursing task of medication administration.

BACKGROUND

Medication errors occurring during medication administration have an increased risk for an adverse patient outcome. Many terms are associated with medication errors, with limited clarification for a medication administration error at the point of care delivery.

DATA SOURCES

Twenty-seven sources were chosen from database searches of PubMed, CINAHL, EMBASE, and Scopus. Key search terms used to narrow the search consist of the following terminology: ("bedside" OR "point-of-care" OR "nursing care*") AND "medication administration errors" AND ("acute care").

REVIEW METHODS

Rodger's evolutionary method of concept analysis was used to clarify the concept of medication administration error.

RESULTS

The concept analysis identified three attributes of a medication administration error: nurse-provided care, administration, and point of care. Antecedents identified in the analysis are organizational factors and nurse factors. Consequences identified in the analysis are patient, nurse and organizational themes.

CONCLUSION

The continued occurrence of medication administration errors warrants the need for an investigation into existing safety measures. Using this concept analysis may help guide the study of the healthcare environment and determine empirical measures to assess the impact that a medication administration error has.

Nurses' Perceptions on the Implementation of a Safe Drug Administration Protocol and Its Effect on Error Notification

Patient safety and quality of care are fundamental pillars in the health policies of various governments and international organizations. The purpose of this study is to evaluate nurses’ perceptions on the degree of implementation of a protocol for the standardization of care and to measure its influence on notification of adverse events related to the administration of medications. This comparative study used data obtained from questionnaires completed by 180 nurses from medical and surgical units. Our analyses included analysis of variance and regression models. We observe that the responses changed unevenly over time in each group, finding significant differences in all comparisons. The mean response rating was increased at 6 months in the intervention group, and this level was maintained at 12 months. With the new protocol, a total of 246 adverse events and 481 incidents without harm was reported. Thus, actions such as the use of protocols and event notification systems should be implemented to improve quality of care and patient safety.

Indicators of effectiveness of nursing care in the dimension of patient safety

ABSTRACT Objectives: to validate nursing care effectiveness indicators of patient safety dimension. Methods: quantitative survey, using the electronic Delphi sampli, with 52 participants selected by the Snowball sampling. Eight indicators were evaluated regarding the attributes: availability, reliability, simplicity, representativeness, sensitivity, comprehensiveness, objectivity, cost, utility, stability and timeliness. For validation, the minimum agreement criterion was 70%. Results: Cronbach’s alpha (0.942) evidenced the high internal consistency among the attributes. The indicators fall with damage, hip fracture, and postoperative hip fracture, incidents related to equipment, incidents due to failures in patient identification, and pressure injury were validated in all attributes, and those of medication error and hand Hygiene were not validated. Conclusions: the validated indicators allow assessment of the effectiveness of hospital nursing care. Unavailability of data is an obstacle to monitoring patient safety.