Improving Medication Calculation Skills of Practicing Nurses and Senior Nursing Students

Abstract

Medication administration is an essential nursing competency as calculation difficulties can lead to serious medication errors. Nurses involved in staff education need to be aware of methods to assess for computation difficulty and develop strategies for nurses to improve their computation abilities. The purposes of this quasi-experimental pilot study were to assess the medication calculation skills of nurses and nursing students and to determine the effectiveness of teaching strategies aimed at improving these skills.

Educational audit on drug dose calculation learning in a Tanzanian school of nursing

“…Three studies in the United States of America on medication calculation ability have significantly better pretest results than the current study, but similar post-test results 7,8,9 . Comparatively, the Tanzanian students may have lacked knowledge in the pretest, they were motivated and able to learn effectively.…”

Current status of administration of medicines

“…18 Several studies and reports demonstrate the need to make mathematical calculations a priority focus area. 19,20 More than 1 in 6 medication errors involve a calculation error. [21][22][23] A simulated study in a pediatric stabilization unit in England found that 14.2% of 150 orders were converted from milligrams to milliliters incorrectly, with a maximum dose deviation of 400%.…”

Using Graphical Representations to Support the Calculation of Infusion Parameters

“…These have ranged from traditional pedagogic efforts [5] -more teaching -to the development of interactive learning environments [6]. Although educational programmes do much to address arithmetical shortcomings, they provide little insight into whether the traditional textual layout of information used during calculations is best suited to the task that nurses face.…”