Effect of Nursing Guidelines on Nurses' Performance Regarding Intravenous Drug Administration in Intensive Care Unit

Abstract

Medication errors in critical care are frequent, serious, and predictable. Malpractice in preparation and administration of intravenous (IV) medications has been reported frequently by nurses. Inadequate knowledge of nurses has been reported as a cause of such errors. Nurses being understaffing, under qualified and lacking enough follow up, lacking educational and training program (Ofusu and Jarrett ,2015). The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of educational guidelines on nurses' performance regarding intravenous medication administration in ICU. Design: Quasi-experimental design was applied to achieve the aim of the study. Setting: this study was conducted in surgical intensive care units at Ain Shams University hospitals. Subjects: convenient sample included all nurses working in intensive care unit at Ain Shams University hospitals. Tools: data were collected through two tools; First tool: nurses' self-administered questionnaire, it was developed to assess nurses' knowledge and attitude regarding different aspects of IV medication administration, second tool: an observational checklist to assess nurses’ practices regarding IV medication administration. Results: This result revealed that nurses' knowledge, practice and attitude regarding IV medication administration were statistically significantly improved at post and follow up implementation of nursing guidelines (x=19.461& 8.148 at p <0.001,& p=0.004; x=21.696 & 9.774 at p<0.001& p=0.002 and x=13.067 &15.017 at p <0.001 respectively ).Conclusion: there was significant improvement in nurses' performance regarding IV drug administration in addition to decrease of IV medication errors among nurses working in an intensive care unit. Recommendation: The study recommended implementing these developed nursing guidelines on other groups of nurses in order to improve their performance and prevent IV medication administration errors.