Patient safety in nursing care during medication administration

OBJECTIVE: to evaluate the conformity of care practices of the nursing team during the administration of drugs through central vascular catheter. METHOD: a descriptive, prospective, observational study conducted in an Intensive Care Unit. The non-probabilistic intentional sample consisted of 3402 observations of drug administrations in patients with central vascular catheters. The previously validated collection instrument was constructed based on the Guideline for Prevention of Intravascular catheter-related infections. Data was collected through direct observations of nursing practices performed by the nursing team. The analysis used analytical, descriptive and inferential statistics (Chi-square test and Fisher’s exact test). RESULTS: a total of 3402 procedures of drug administrations were observed. Female nursing technicians performed the highest number of actions. In none of the procedures did the professional perform all necessary actions. 0.2% of drug administrations were preceded by hand hygiene and 1.3% by disinfection of the multidose vial, ampoule or injectors. CONCLUSION: the practice evaluated was classified as undesirable. Failure to achieve the desired conformity was probably due to the low adherence of professionals to the practice of hand hygiene and disinfection of materials, injectors and connectors.