RESEARCH ARTICLE
Intravenous Medication Errors Among ICU Nurses: Differences In Knowledge Attitudes And Behavior
Khaldoun M. Hamdan1, *, Maha A. Albqoor2, Abeer M. Shaheen3
Article Information
Identifiers and Pagination:
Year: 2022Volume: 16
E-location ID: e187443462206201
Publisher ID: e187443462206201
DOI: 10.2174/18744346-v16-e2206201
Article History:
Received Date: 2/3/2022Revision Received Date: 16/3/2022
Acceptance Date: 30/3/2022
Electronic publication date: 17/08/2022
Collection year: 2022
open-access license: This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License (CC-BY 4.0), a copy of which is available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode. This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Abstract
Background:
Intravenous (IV) medication errors can lead to serious complications for ICU patients. ICU nurses' knowledge, training, attitudes, and behaviors toward medication errors are insufficiently investigated.
Objectives:
This study aims at investigating knowledge, behaviors, training, and attitudes among ICU nurses during the preparation and administration of IV medications and examining their differences according to certain variables.
Methods:
A cross-sectional-correlational design was used in this study. A convenience sampling technique included 206 ICU nurses from different types of hospitals in Jordan. The knowledge, attitudes and behavior related to medication errors questionnaire were used to collect data. Descriptive statistics, t-test, Pearson correlation, and Kruskal-Wallis H test were used to analyze the data.
Results:
ICU nurses showed adequate knowledge regarding IV medication preparation and administration, with gaps in basic professional behaviors. About 81.6% of the ICU nurses considered dosage calculation of intravenous drugs to reduce preparation errors. 81.1% of respondents agreed that clinical skills about the safe management of drug therapy should be regularly evaluated. Only (87.9%) of the ICU nurses agreed that handwashing is necessary before drug preparation and administration. Despite that 90.8% received training related to the preparation and administration of IV medications during undergraduate study, about 23.3% didn’t receive topics related to the preparation and administration of IV drugs treated during the POST-basic courses. This study showed a strong positive correlation between ICU nurses' knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors.
Conclusion:
Education is essential to nurses’ feeling safe at administering medications, especially in critical care units, which may affect their attitudes and behaviors. Continuous education that meets the needs of nurses is essential, along with continuous monitoring and evaluation of clinical practices to maintain safe and efficient medication practices and reduce related errors.
