Behavioral characteristic of nurses administering oral medications

Abstract

This study examines the behavioral characteristics of nurses administering oral medications. We presented questionnaires consisting of 66 items to 3,319 nurses working in general wards at 56 hospitals in Japan and received valid responses from 1,638 of them.

We performed factor analysis with evaluation scores of the 37 items for which evaluation scores of the no-error group were significantly higher than those of the error group. As a result, we identified three factors：“information utilization,” “cooperation,” and “operational coordination and knowledge acquisition." We compared factor scores of nurses by analysis of variance. Independent variables were frequency of medication error and years of experience. The scores of the group with three or more errors were significantly lower than those of other groups with regard to “information utilization” and “operation coordination and knowledge acquisition.” This suggests that nurses making fewer medication errors use information about patient status and drugs more positively, adjust safe operations during administration more consciously, and acquire the latest information about knowledge and skills for safety more completely. “Cooperation” scores of mid-career nurses were significantly higher than those of short- and long-career nurses in the group with three or more errors. This suggests that short-and long-career nurses make medication errors because they don't actively cooperate with other staff members, while mid-career nurses make medication errors in spite of cooperating with others.