To Study the Effectiveness of the Training Program on Safe Administration of Drugs to Reduce the Medication Error

Abstract

Introduction: Medication process is a complex process and errors are possible at several aspects of medication process. The present study was conducted in Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) of selected hospital, Delhi, with the objectives of investigating the incidence of medication errors in the NICU, to explore the types of medication errors occurring frequently, to develop and evaluate the training program on safe administration of pediatric drugs in terms of knowledge and skills for the nurses working in the neonatal unit. Methodology: Research approach selected for the study was quantitative approach with pre-experimental one group pre-test, post-test design. 50 prescriptions and 138 drugs were selected for investigating the medication errors and total enumeration sampling technique was used for selecting the staff nurses for evaluating the knowledge and practice of 30 staff nurses. Tools developed and used for data collection were structured knowledge questionnaire and observation check list to assess the knowledge and practice of staff nurses on safe administration of pediatric drugs respectively. Result: Medication errors were present in 127 (92.02%) drugs prescribed by the pediatrician. Medication error rate was highest during drug administration process that is 117 (94.90%) followed by the documentation error of 110 (79.7%) whereas transcription errors accounted for 69 (50%) in overall process of the medication. The prescription errors were noted in 56 (40.50%) of drug prescriptions. The mean post- test knowledge and practice scores of the staff nurses on safe administration of drugs were statistically higher at 0.05 level of significance than the corresponding mean pre-test knowledge and practice scores. Conclusion: The training program on safe administration of pediatric drugs was found to be effective in improving knowledge and practice of staff nurses.