PERCEPTION OF MEDICATION ADMINISTRATION ERROR AND ITS CONTRIBUTING FACTORS AMONG NURSING STUDENTS: A CROSS-SECTIONAL STUDY

Abstract

Background: Medication administration errors are a major concern in the healthcare industry because they have the potential to compromise patient safety and lower the standard of care. Nursing students are particularly prone to these errors because of their lack of clinical experience, inadequate information, heavy workloads, and insufficient supervision during clinical practice. Understanding how nursing students perceive medicine delivery errors and the variables that lead to them is essential to improving medication and nursing education. Objective: This study aimed to identify and analyze the contributing factors to medication administration errors among nursing students at Bahria Town School of Nursing and Akhtar Saeed College of Nursing. Methodology: A descriptive cross sectional study design was used. A total of 80 final year Bachelor of Science in nursing (BSN) students were selected through purposive sampling. Data was collected using an adapted structured questionnaire. The collected data were analyzed using Statistical Package (SPSS) version 23. Descriptive statistics, including frequencies and percentages were used to summarize the findings. Results: The most common medication errors were found to be wrong-time (37.5%) and wrong dosage (33.8%). Wrong frequency errors were the least frequent (8.8%), whereas omission and prescription errors each accounted for (10.0%). During clinical practice, almost half of the respondents said they made mistakes when administering medications and many acknowledged doing so. Despite the fact that the majority of participants acknowledged the significance of reporting error.