Behavioural changes in medication safety: Consequent to an action research intervention

Investigating safe nursing care and medication safety competence in nursing students: a multicenter cross-sectional study in Iran

BACKGROUND

Medication safety competence is very important as one of the clinical skills among nursing students to provide safe nursing care. The lack of medication safety competence in nursing students leads to occurrence of medication errors subsequently jeopardizing patient safety. Thus, the present study was conducted to investigate safe nursing care and medication safety competence among nursing students in the south of Iran.

METHODS

A descriptive cross-sectional multicenter study was conducted from September to December 2022. The research population included nursing students of three universities of medical sciences in Fars Province, Southern Iran. A total of 310 nursing students who were selected through convenience sampling participated in the study. The data collection instruments consisted of a demographics survey, Medication Safety Competence Scale (MSCS), and a Safe Nursing Care Scale (SNCS). The collected data were analyzed using descriptive statistics (absolute and relative frequency, mean and standard deviation) and inferential statistics (Independent t-test, Analysis of variance and Pearson correlation coefficient). The data were analyzed in SPSS 23 and the level of significance was considered 0.05.

RESULTS

The mean age of the participants was 22.53 ± 1.69 years. The total mean scores for medication safety competence and safe nursing care were found to be 111.97 ± 11.85 and 105.12 ± 11.64, respectively. There was a statistically significant positive correlation between safe nursing care and medication safety competence (r = 0.084, P < 0.001).

CONCLUSION

The mean scores of nursing students' medication safety competence and safe nursing care were at an average level. To maintain patient safety, nursing instructors and managers are recommended to employ appropriate strategies to improve medication safety competence and safe nursing care in nursing students.

Translation and psychometric assessment of a Persian version of medication safety competence scale (MSCS) for clinical nurses

Nurses play a key role in medication safety and, by extension, patient safety. Evaluation of medication safety competence in nurses requires valid, specific, and comprehensive instruments. The present study was conducted to translate and psychometric assessment a Persian version of medication safety competence scale (MSCS) for clinical nurses in Iran. This is a cross-sectional and multi-centric work of research with a methodological design. A total of 1080 clinical nurses were selected from 5 cities located in Iran. The original version of the MSCS was translated into Persian and the psychometric properties of MSCS were assessed using COSMIN criteria. The exploratory factor analysis (EFA) showed that the factor loading of the 36 items was between 0.72-0.87, all of which were significant. The confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) fitted the data well (χ²/df = 7, RMSEA = 0.01, CFI = 0.96, NFI = 0.95, and TLI = 0.97). The reliability of the instrument was assessed in terms of its internal homogeneity where the Cronbach's alpha of the whole instrument was found to be 0.96. The Persian version of MSCS for nurses possesses satisfactory validity and reliability. Thus, nurse managers can use this instrument to measure medication safety competence in nurses.

Psychometric evaluation of medication safety competence scale for clinical nurses

BACKGROUND

Nurses are the most important members of the health care system for medication safety, there are few tools to evaluate their medication safety competence. This study aimed to translate the Medication Safety Competence Scale into Chinese and validate its reliability and validity among clinical nurses.

METHODS

A total of 894 clinical nurses were recruited from three cities in China. The original version of the Medication Safety Competence Scale was translated into Chinese using the backward and forward translation procedure. The reliability of the scale was measured by internal consistency, split-half reliability, and stability. The validity of the scale was assessed by the content validity index, exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis.

RESULTS

The Cronbach's coefficient of the scale was 0.940, and the coefficient values for the six domains ranged between 0.843 and 0.948. The split-half reliability and stability were 0.671 and 0.703, respectively. The content validity index of the scale was 0.952. The 6-factor structure, supported by the eigenvalues, total variance explained, and scree plot accounted for 71.485 % of the total variance. Moreover, as a result of the confirmatory factor analysis, the average variance extracted values were 0.55 to 0.70, and the model fitting indexes were all in the acceptable range.

CONCLUSIONS

The Chinese version of the Medication Safety Competence Scale had ideal reliability and validity among clinical nurses. The evaluation results of the scale can provide a reference for nursing managers to formulate education plans and intervention measures to improve clinical nurses' safe medication competence.