Nursing Causes of Medication Errors

Question: Describe about the Nursing for Causes of Medication Errors. Answer: This paper is a review of the article Nursing students' perspectives of the cause of medication errors by Vaismoradi et al. (2014). This paper deals with key findings of the above article and evidences used by the author to support the key ideas presented in the paper. Vaismoradi et al. (2014) illustrates that medication errors are preventable and is vital to ensure patients safety. Nurses play a vital role in medication administration process. However, current literature mainly focuses on registered nurses thereby the author of this article takes keen interest to discover the ideas of nursing students about medication error. In this, article the author: Investigates about the perspective of the nurses about increasing medication errors Intends to discover if the education program for nurses incorporate the error management technique aims to research on the contribution made by the nursing students in medication management, as this area remains unreported intends to find out if there is a drift between being worried and being careful and presence of caring skills in nurses 2. Vaismoradi et al. (2014) has presented the reports of Mayo and Duncan (2004) which demonstrates that all medication errors are not reported due to fear of higher authority. Based on the qualitative study conducted with 24 nursing students, it was found that medicine management needs to be included in the nursing curricula as students have little knowledge about practical aspects of medication. Further, the results indicated that academic institutions and clinical mentors must support nursing students to become more competent and skilful, as students are not involved in medication-related activities. These findings are consistent with the studies of Papastrat and Wallace (2003) that illustrated the fact that nursing students are mainly involved in the risk free aspects of medication administration. Further findings showed that the knowledge and skills of nurse mentors have a great impact on students safe practice. Critical thinking skills are not empowered in students therefore the y lack confidence. The author highlights that the language concordance and health literacy are crucial for medication safety and the same is supported with the study of Bailey et al. (2009). The author investigated from the qualitative study that nursing student feels the need of investing additional time in high-fidelity skills laboratories and these findings were consistent with Wolf et al. (2006) which studied that performance deficits are the cause of medication errors. The key concept behind this idea is the fact that misconception arises due to differences in terminology. From the work of Jordan (2011), author illustrated that suboptimal staffing and equipment causes drug errors. The author also illustrates that the US nurses due to work place stress and uncooperative behaviour from patients may face occupational hazards. This argument was supported by data from Bureau of Labor Statistics. In conclusion, the research findings of Vaismoradi et al. (2014), confirms that medication error can be minimised by improving the nursing education programs by incorporating safe medication strategies or techniques. Further, nurse mentors should allow the students to deal with risk aspects of the medication administration procedure. References Bailey, S. C., Shrank, W. H., Parker, R. M., Davis, T. C., Wolf, M. S. (2013). Medication label improvement: an issue at the intersection of health literacy and patient safety.Journal of Communication in Healthcare. Jordan, S., 2011. Signposting the causes of medication errors.International nursing review,58(1), pp.45-46. Mayo, A.M. and Duncan, D., 2004. Nurse perceptions of medication errors: what we need to know for patient safety.Journal of nursing care quality,19(3), pp.209-217. Vaismoradi, M., Jordan, S., Turunen, H. and Bondas, T., 2014. Nursing students' perspectives of the cause of medication errors.Nurse education today,34(3), pp.434-440. Wolf, Z.R., Hicks, R. and Serembus, J.F., 2006. Characteristics of medication errors made by students during the administration phase: a descriptive study.Journal of Professional Nursing,22(1), pp.39-51.