High alert medications administration errors in neonatal intensive care unit: A pediatric tertiary hospital experience

Özet

Changing nurses' culture of safety and increasing error reporting, theninvestigating the common causes of error, particularly those associated withhigh-risk medications, will finally improve medication safety at neonatalintensive care units (NICU). This study aims to assess nurses' knowledgeand practices during the administration of high alert medications (HAM).This is a hospital-based descriptive cross sectional study, implemented inthe NICU, at Cairo University Pediatric hospital. A convenient sample of 33bedside NICU nurses, who agreed to participate was recruited.A valid, reliable questionnaire was used to measure NICU nurses' generaland specific knowledge regarding five therapeutic HAM. An observationalchecklist was used to assess nurses' administration practices. Both revealedthat the mean percentage score of the nurses' knowledge (76.2±11.6) washigher than the mean percentage score of their total practice (69.1±13.3).Analysis of types of nurses' errors, showed that the most common error typewas the wrong dose (15%), followed by wrong drug type (13.6%).Nurses' knowledge and training are not mandatorily interpreted into improvedimplementation practices. Interventions highlighted for preventing HAMerrors were developing specific training on HAM for nurses and establishingneonate centered, multidisciplinary teams formed of physicians, nurses, andpharmacists