Nurses’ perceptions of verification of medication competence

Abstract

Objective: Medication administration is a common clinical procedure of nurses. However, medication errors are a significant cause of morbidity and mortality in hospitalized patients. Previous studies have shown that nurses lack theoretical knowledge and drug calculation skills. This challenges nurses to update their skills regularly and hospitals to organise a systematic verification process of medication competence. The Finnish Ministry of Social Affairs and Health defined in 2006 how nurses' medication competence should be verified. Hence, Finnish nurses' perceptions of the verification process of medication competence was considered a significant topic to be studied. Methods: The study has a qualitative descriptive design and the data were analysed using inductive content analysis. Results: Two main categories and nine generic categories were generated from collected data. Five of the generic categories contain nurses' perceptions of how they accept the verification process as part of their work. Four of the generic categories contain nurses' perceptions of barriers to successful implementation of the verification process. Conclusions: Nurses considered the verification process of medication competence important to developing medication safety and practices. Nurses considered that the verification process maintains and improves their medication competence. E-learning is a sound method of implementing the process but nurses suggest additional lectures and workshops, e.g. on drug calculations. Nurses appreciate the mandatory nature of the verification process as long as they perceive the verified competence meaningful to their professional role as nurses.

Tradução para português do Brasil e adaptação cultural de um questionário sobre medicamentos potencialmente perigosos

“…Approximately 20 medications are known for their increased risk of significantly harming or even causing death if inappropriately used, accounting for 80% of deaths due to administration errors, which compromises patient safety. Due to the occurrence of errors in the administration of these components and consequent catastrophic clinical results, these drugs are identified as potentially dangerous drugs or high-alert medications, including antithrombotic, anti-diabetic, neuromuscular blocking, and anesthetic agents and agents for mild sedation, intravenous adrenergic agonists, intravenous beta-blockers, concentrated electrolytes, opioids, and chemotherapeutic agents, among others (1)(2)(3)(4) .…”

The 10 ‘R's of safe multidisciplinary drug administration

“…Yet, Durham (2015) highlights that nurses may not be aware of a near-miss event or what constitutes a medication error, implying that Sneck et al's (2015) proposal of regular medication updates may be attractive.…”

“…Nurses can further reduce human factors in medication errors (leading to morbidity and mortality in hospitalized patients) by keeping their skills up to date (Sneck et al, 2015). Regular or annual updates for nurses verify that they are competent in medication administration and have theoretical knowledge and drug calculation skills.…”