Assessment of nurses’ knowledge for possible occurrence of medication errors in Riyadh province, Saudi Arabia

Abstract

A cross-sectional study using a questionnaire following snowball sampling method was conducted in Riyadh city and surrounding towns to detect insufficient knowledge contributing to the medication errors. The study was carried out in primary healthcare centres, general hospital and specialist hospitals. The participants included nurses of different nationalities, sex, education level, experience and ranks. Comparison was made between these groups to determine the highest and least knowledgeable groups to target them for continuing education. The questionnaire had four section. The first section of questionnaire recorded personal information of the nurses while the second, third and fourth sections contained eight statements each. The second section contained questions about basic pharmacology, the third section about pharmaceutical calculation and dosages while the fourth section had questions about commonly used drugs. All these statements were provided with true/false option for the participant to identify the correct statements. The results indicate that many of the participating nurses lack sufficient knowledge about pharmacology and pharmaceutical calculations. The weakest among the group were male nurses, nurses of Arab origin, nurses holding diploma and surprisingly, the head nurses. To conclude, the knowledge level of many nurses working in Riyadh province is poor. Continuing education programs should be initiated to educate nurses about pharmacology and pharmaceutical calculations.