The Reasons for Nurses not to Use Ventrogluteal Region in Intramuscular Injection Administration

Abstract

Aim: While it is recommended that the ventrogluteal (VG) region is safer for intramuscular (IM) injection administration, we have observed that nurses mainly prefer the dorsogluteal (DG) region. Accordingly, the present study was carried out to examine the reasons for the nurses not to prefer the VG region in IM injection administrations. Material and Method: This descriptive study comprised 100 nurses working in a university hospital in the Konya province between June and July 2018. A questionnaire form was used to collect data. In order to be able to carry out the study, written institutional consent, ethics committee approval, and the verbal consent of participants were received. The SPSS packaged software was used for evaluation of the data, and number, percentage, and mean values were calculated in analyzing the data. Findings: It was seen that of the nurses participating in the study, the average age was 31.96±6.94, the average working year was 10.41±6.18, 75% were female, 53% held a bachelor's degree, 50% worked in internal medicine clinics, 84% used the DG region for IM injections, and 72% never administered an injection to the VG region. It was also determined that the nurses did not use the VG region because they were unaccustomed to it (40%), lacked enough information about the region (33%), could not identify the region (31%), and the patients were unaccustomed to IM injections administered in that region (30%). Conclusion: Nurses use the traditional region DG more because of a lack of knowledge and experience of the VG region.

Adverse effects of dorsogluteal intramuscular injection versus ventrogluteal intramuscular injection: A systematic review and meta‐analysis

“…Meneses & Marques argued in 2007 that the V method does not always maintain a proportional relationship between the size of the professional's hand and the patient's injection site, which could lead to inaccurate injection. There is a large amount of literature that discusses the causes behind the limited use of the VS, but the most influential seem to be the insufficient knowledge and training and the consequential lack of confidence and familiarity with its anatomical landmarks (Su & Bekmezci, 2020). Some authors state that the problem is not that there is a failure in transferring the research results to clinical settings, but rather a lack of strong empirical evidence due to the shortage of rigorous designs, and studies that allow the proportional evaluation of adverse effects in both sites of injection (Brown et al, 2015;Gillespie & Toner, 2013).…”

“…Meneses & Marques argued in 2007 that the V method does not always maintain a proportional relationship between the size of the professional's hand and the patient's injection site, which could lead to inaccurate injection. There is a large amount of literature that discusses the causes behind the limited use of the VS, but the most influential seem to be the insufficient knowledge and training and the consequential lack of confidence and familiarity with its anatomical landmarks (Su & Bekmezci, 2020).…”

The effect of mobile assisted teaching on nursing students' learning ventrogluteal injection application: The case of Turkey

“…There are five different regions where IM injection can be performed (Berman et al, 2016; Potter et al, 2020). Selection of the appropriate one of these regions depends on many factors, such as age, current diseases, absorption rate and interaction of the desired drug (Su & Bekmezci, 2020). Failure to determine the correct site may cause injection into subcutaneous tissue and nerve damage (Nakajima et al, 2020).…”

The effect of mobile learning on safe ventrogluteal site injections: an interventional study

“…They are worried about administering injections into the VG site because they have never used it before. Patients do not agree to a VG site injection because they have never had it before (Gülnar & Çalışkan, 2014;Tuğrul & Denat, 2014;Doğu, 2016;McGee, 2017;Su & Bekmezci, 2020;Wynaden et al, 2015).…”