Determination of Senior Nursing Students’ Mathematical Perception Skills and Pediatric Medication Calculation Performance

AIM: Math skills in the health field are often used to calculate drug dosage and liquid quantity, body mass and cost analysis. The aim of this research is to determine the senior nursing students’ mathematical perception skills and pediatric medication calculation performance. METHOD: The population of this descriptive cross-sectional research is composed of 103 nursing students in attending a state university in Izmir, Turkey. Of the 103 nursing students, 97 who answered all the questions comprised the study sample. All the participants took one-month training in the pediatric clinics during the last year of their education. The data were collected using the “Personal Information Form and Mathematics Perception, Information and Pediatric Drug Calculator Skills Survey” developed by the researchers by reviewing the literature. RESULTS: The mean age of the study participants was 22.24±0.89. Of them, 76.3% were female, 23.7% completed their Pediatric Internship Training in the pediatric inpatient units or the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU), 68% thought that their basic mathematics knowledge was adequate, and %30 stated that their dosage calculation, solution preparation and drug preparation skills were insufficient. In addition, the rate of the correct answers they gave to the questions on percentages, fractions and conversions was low. CONCLUSION: In the drug application process; not only practical skills, but also the theoretical knowledge should be considered. A nurse’s responsibility does not end once he/she administers medication. Being careful throughout the entire process is one of the nurse’s legal and ethical responsibilities. In this study, the students’ drug calculation skills were inadequate.