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Medication knowledge, certainty, and risk of errors in health care: a cross-sectional study

BACKGROUND: Medication errors are often involved in reported adverse events. Drug therapy, prescribed by physicians, is mostly carried out by nurses, who are expected to master all aspects of medication. Research has revealed the need for improved knowledge in drug dose calculation, and medication k...

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Autores principales: Simonsen, Bjoerg O, Johansson, Inger, Daehlin, Gro K, Osvik, Lene Merete, Farup, Per G
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2011
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3162500/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21791106
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1472-6963-11-175
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author Simonsen, Bjoerg O
Johansson, Inger
Daehlin, Gro K
Osvik, Lene Merete
Farup, Per G
author_facet Simonsen, Bjoerg O
Johansson, Inger
Daehlin, Gro K
Osvik, Lene Merete
Farup, Per G
author_sort Simonsen, Bjoerg O
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Medication errors are often involved in reported adverse events. Drug therapy, prescribed by physicians, is mostly carried out by nurses, who are expected to master all aspects of medication. Research has revealed the need for improved knowledge in drug dose calculation, and medication knowledge as a whole is poorly investigated. The purpose of this survey was to study registered nurses' medication knowledge, certainty and estimated risk of errors, and to explore factors associated with good results. METHODS: Nurses from hospitals and primary health care establishments were invited to carry out a multiple-choice test in pharmacology, drug management and drug dose calculations (score range 0-14). Self-estimated certainty in each answer was recorded, graded from 0 = very uncertain to 3 = very certain. Background characteristics and sense of coping were recorded. Risk of error was estimated by combining knowledge and certainty scores. The results are presented as mean (±SD). RESULTS: Two-hundred and three registered nurses participated (including 16 males), aged 42.0 (9.3) years with a working experience of 12.4 (9.2) years. Knowledge scores in pharmacology, drug management and drug dose calculations were 10.3 (1.6), 7.5 (1.6), and 11.2 (2.0), respectively, and certainty scores were 1.8 (0.4), 1.9 (0.5), and 2.0 (0.6), respectively. Fifteen percent of the total answers showed a high risk of error, with 25% in drug management. Independent factors associated with high medication knowledge were working in hospitals (p < 0.001), postgraduate specialization (p = 0.01) and completion of courses in drug management (p < 0.01). CONCLUSIONS: Medication knowledge was found to be unsatisfactory among practicing nurses, with a significant risk for medication errors. The study revealed a need to improve the nurses' basic knowledge, especially when referring to drug management.
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spelling pubmed-31625002011-08-27 Medication knowledge, certainty, and risk of errors in health care: a cross-sectional study Simonsen, Bjoerg O Johansson, Inger Daehlin, Gro K Osvik, Lene Merete Farup, Per G BMC Health Serv Res Research Article BACKGROUND: Medication errors are often involved in reported adverse events. Drug therapy, prescribed by physicians, is mostly carried out by nurses, who are expected to master all aspects of medication. Research has revealed the need for improved knowledge in drug dose calculation, and medication knowledge as a whole is poorly investigated. The purpose of this survey was to study registered nurses' medication knowledge, certainty and estimated risk of errors, and to explore factors associated with good results. METHODS: Nurses from hospitals and primary health care establishments were invited to carry out a multiple-choice test in pharmacology, drug management and drug dose calculations (score range 0-14). Self-estimated certainty in each answer was recorded, graded from 0 = very uncertain to 3 = very certain. Background characteristics and sense of coping were recorded. Risk of error was estimated by combining knowledge and certainty scores. The results are presented as mean (±SD). RESULTS: Two-hundred and three registered nurses participated (including 16 males), aged 42.0 (9.3) years with a working experience of 12.4 (9.2) years. Knowledge scores in pharmacology, drug management and drug dose calculations were 10.3 (1.6), 7.5 (1.6), and 11.2 (2.0), respectively, and certainty scores were 1.8 (0.4), 1.9 (0.5), and 2.0 (0.6), respectively. Fifteen percent of the total answers showed a high risk of error, with 25% in drug management. Independent factors associated with high medication knowledge were working in hospitals (p < 0.001), postgraduate specialization (p = 0.01) and completion of courses in drug management (p < 0.01). CONCLUSIONS: Medication knowledge was found to be unsatisfactory among practicing nurses, with a significant risk for medication errors. The study revealed a need to improve the nurses' basic knowledge, especially when referring to drug management. BioMed Central 2011-07-26 /pmc/articles/PMC3162500/ /pubmed/21791106 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1472-6963-11-175 Text en Copyright ©2011 Simonsen et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0 This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Simonsen, Bjoerg O
Johansson, Inger
Daehlin, Gro K
Osvik, Lene Merete
Farup, Per G
Medication knowledge, certainty, and risk of errors in health care: a cross-sectional study
title Medication knowledge, certainty, and risk of errors in health care: a cross-sectional study
title_full Medication knowledge, certainty, and risk of errors in health care: a cross-sectional study
title_fullStr Medication knowledge, certainty, and risk of errors in health care: a cross-sectional study
title_full_unstemmed Medication knowledge, certainty, and risk of errors in health care: a cross-sectional study
title_short Medication knowledge, certainty, and risk of errors in health care: a cross-sectional study
title_sort medication knowledge, certainty, and risk of errors in health care: a cross-sectional study
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3162500/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21791106
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1472-6963-11-175
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