Children Medication Safety strategies: Its effect on Reducing Medication Errors among Pediatric Nurses

Abstract

Medication safety means freedom from preventable harm associated with medication. Medication errors are considered the most common gap in safety that occurs in hospital settings, which, increase children mortality rate. For this reason. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effect of children medication Safety strategies on medication errors among pediatric nurses. The design of this study was quasi experimental design. The setting: the study was conducted at the Pediatric Department in Menoufia University Hospital and Shebin El-kom Teaching Hospital. Sampling: A convenient samples of 50 nurses were obtained from the previous mentioned settings. Instruments: Three instruments were used; Instrument one contained structured interview questionnaire sheet was utilized to identify nurses' knowledge about medication administration safety. Instrument two was an observation checklist to observe nurses preparation for medication administration and detecting medication errors. Instrument three includes medication safety audit list for nurses. The results of this study showed that errors in the administration of medication occurred between 2% of nurses post intervention instead of 14% pre intervention, Also there were significant improvement in nurses' knowledge for medication safety on posttest and follow-up tests(13.64 ± 2.09) and (12.58 ± 1.6) respectively than on pretest(8.02 ± 3.7). Also, nurse's practices were improved after the implementation of safety strategies related to medication administration. Conclusions, implementation of safety strategies reduced medication errors and improved nurses' knowledge as well as practices regarding medication administration safety. Recommendation: applying medication Safety strategies to all pediatric units to improve nurses' knowledge and practices regarding medication safety.