Qualitative and Quantitative Study on Nurses' Medication Administration Practices

This qualitative and quantitative study explores nurses' experiences and perspectives on medication administration practices. It investigates the significance of safe practices and factors that influence errors. The research design, sampling technique, data collection method, and data analysis are discussed. Findings reveal themes on nurses' roles and responsibilities, ability to work safely, and acceptance of safety practices. The study has limitations and recommendations for further research.

Guided questions Answer Template (Please do not Remove the questions)
Guided Question Qualitative Study Quantitative Study
1. Aim andSignificance
(5 marks 200 words)
a. What was the aimand
significance ofthe study?
The aim of this qualitative study was to
explore nurses’ experiences and their
perspectives on how they avoid making
errors when administering medications to
patients. The importance of utilising their
clinical skills to tailor and implement safe
practices in the medical field to ensure safe
handling of medication administration. To
explore how registered nurses’, prevent
errors when administering medication to
patients.
This study was to investigate the safe practices of
medication administration amongst graduate nurses.
They are more vulnerable in unsupportive climates and
are recognised to be at a higher risk for making errors
when administering medications to patients.
2. Methods (10 marks
700 words)
a. Identify the The research design used in the study was The research design that was used in this study was

research design used
in the study and was
it appropriate for the
issue discussed?
to interview 20 nurses in an academic
medical centre that was conducted
between March and December of 2011.
The outcome that resulted from this study
were three themes that emerged which
were: (1) nurses’ roles and responsibilities
in medication safety (safe preparation and
clinical reasoning), (2) nurses’ ability to
work safely (risk management that
influence their ability to work safely) and (3)
nurses’ acceptance of safety practices
(feasibility and appropriateness are
important incentives for acceptance of a
safety practice)
exploratory study using quantitative survey with a
convenience sample of 58 nursing graduates in two
Australian states.
Based on the research design used in the study, it
identified that unsupportive workplace relationships
were inversely related to nursing graduate’s medication
errors and erosion of safe medication practices
(Hartas, 2015). Whilst supportive Nurse Unit Manager
and supportive work team relationships positively
influenced safe medication practice among graduates.
b. Discuss the sampling
technique, inclusion and
exclusion criteria used for
the selection of sample in
the study
The researchers were found to adopt the
method of purposive sampling as they had
the aim to recruit nursing professionals. It is
also termed as selective sampling by many
studies. The main advantage that remains
associated with the fact of this sampling
technique is that helps by providing a
generalisation of the data obtained from the
The researchers had been seen to include participants
belonging from different of the databases that actually
had the information from various australain university
nursing schools. The total number of the respondents
was found to be 1425. The researchers of this study
were mainly seen to have adopted the procedures of
convenience sampling. Here the nursing graduates
were mainly selected from the databases based on the

sample and also contributes to saving time
and even money (Berger, 2018)). One of
the most notable limitations of this sampling
technique is that it is highly prone to
development of researcher biasness and
there is also no other procedures in
measuring the reliability (Neuendorf, 2016).
Snowball sampling was also found to be
followed that actually helps in reaching
population that was previously found to be
inaccessible. However, there seems to be
no guaranteed representativeness of the
procedures (Bloomberg et al., 2018). The
researchers had not provided any form of
detailed eligibility criteria. The sampling is
found to involve nursing ward managers.
Nursing managers and also quality and
safety innovators.
presence of different specific characteristics. Studies
are of the opinion that the primary advantages of this
specific sampling technique is that it helps by
facilitating the procedures of obtaining a sample of the
participants which remain based on the proximity as
well as accessibility to the researchers (McNabb et al.,
2015). Limitations also remain intricately associated
with this technique. These are the possibilities of
sampling errors along with the bias in the data
collection and it also causes lack of generalised results
(Barnham, 2015). The paper had failed in providing
detailed information on the exclusion and the inclusion
criteria other than the fact that nurses had recently
graduated and that 30% of the nurses had retained the
same email accounts of their universities.
c.Explore the data
collection method and its
appropriateness to the
research design of the
The researchers had conducted semi-
structured interviews for the 20 nursing
professionals and each of the sessions was
of the duration of 60 to 90 minutes.
The researchers had undertaken online surveys for
collection of the data from about 427 participants.
Individuals are of the opinion that surveys are indeed
an important collection tool and have gained huge

study Revisions were made on the topic in the
initial phase. At the end of the data
collection, the nursing professionals were
asked different questions on their safety
practices. However, the data collection
procedure mainly involved a meeting where
no formal list of the questions was followed
by the interviewer. The method can be
considered appropriate as it helped in
effective analysis of the responses of the
questions (Levitt et al., 2017). Still, it can be
said that the responses cannot guarantee
participant honesty.
degree of attention in the recent years. Surveys help
participants to gather the opportunity of providing
answers at a feasible location and are also found to be
cheaper, simpler and also faster. Moreover, the data
collection period becomes significantly short and this
helps in facilitating the researchers (Lauge et al.,
2015). However, there also lies the probability of
sample selection bias in such methods of surveys.
Moreover, rates of response can be also found to be
quite low when compared to that of other survey
techniques (Cypress, 2017).
3. Data analysis and
results (10 marks
600 words)
a. How was the data
analysed and was
it appropriate for
the study?
The researchers conducted the data
analysis along with that of the interviews
and these were mainly based on the
qualitative research guidelines. They
utilised the MAXQDA10 software. Then
individual coding of the responses from the
From the online platform of the Qualtrics® which was
present in the website of the university, all the
responses of the survey were downloaded. Then the
researchers analysed the results with the use of the
SPSS version 20 software. Descriptive statistical
analysis was also conducted by the researchers to

interview was done and then all the codes
were separately compared as well as
analysed until the consensus for the coding
tree is reached. It can be stated that the
consensus meetings mainly helped in the
identification of the most recurrent and the
relevant themes which focused on the
perceptions and perspectives of nursing
professionals in the case of medication
safety. Therefore, thematic analysis of the
current approach can be considered correct
as it helps in encompassing the
identification, examination and
documentation of information within that of
the data. This helps in fulfilling the
objectives of the qualitative researches
(Levitt et al., 2017). The researchers had
also correctly utilised the MAXQDA10
software. Studies are of the opinion that
this software is designed in ways by which
they can provide assistance in data
analysis in all qualitative, quantitative and
determine the different logical responses in addition to
that of effective recognition of the extent of data that
was missing. Utilisation of the SPSS tool can be
considered to be the correct procedure as it a widely
popular statistical analysis software used in the social
research (Green & Thorogood, 2018). Moreover, the
software also helps in facilitation of the data
management as well as documentation that helps the
researchers during the quantitative researches. It also
needs to be stated that descriptive statistics that was
conducted was also appropriate because the
coefficient obtained helped in summarising the data set
and also helped in representations of the general
sample of the population of the nurses mainly by ways
of broking them down into that of measures of central
tendency and variability.

mixed method research
b. What were the
findings/results of
the study?
Out of the 20 nursing professionals who
had been recruited for the study, there had
been 15 females and 5 males who had the
mean age of 43 years.
From the data analysis, three themes had
been found to rise up which are (a)ability of
the nurses in working in safe manner by
developing a sound knowledge of the
potential risks and also that the work
circumstances also determine their
capability in working securely (b) different
responsibilities as well as roles of the
nurses in the medication safety besides
that from the safe administration and
preparation and that the clinical reasoning
is also imperative for ensuring that medical
safety is followed (c) the acceptance
among that of the nurses in relation to that
of the safety practices like that of the
feasibility, advantages, and correctness.
These are found to be significant incentives
The mean employment duration of that of the recent
graduates was found to be mainly an estimated around
13.2 months. Moreover, the nursing graduates were
also found to be working as full timers in the community
care, acute care settings as well as the
surgical/medical ward. The most number of medication
errors were found to be among the nurses working in
surgical-medical ward (46.6%, n = 27) and this number
was then followed by the nurses working in the acute
care ward (12.06%, n = 7). About 25 of the nurses
accounting for about 60.3% had reported of being
witness or involved in the medication errors with 14
nurses accounting for about 24.1% of the people had
reported of errors. Some common forms of support that
could be indentified were
 provision for in-service education,
 presence of nursing educator in the wards,
 debriefing sessions, and
 learning package utilisation,
 experienced nurses being buddy

for the reception of the safety practices. It had been also found that with the help of spearman’s
correlations that workplace relations which are
uncooperative were inversely related to that of the
medication errors made by the nursing graduates along
with the violation of the safe medication practices. On
the other hand, strong team relationships along with
supportive work environment may help in positive
impact on the medication safety practices among the
graduate nurses.

c. Discuss the
limitations and
recommendations
of the study?
It can be stated that the use of small
sample size helps in reducing the
representativeness as well as the reliability
of the various data that had been found
(Rahman, 2017). It can be also stated that
as the study was conducted in a single
centre, it might have resulted in over-
representativeness or under-
representativeness. Along with this, further
researches also need to be done which
should focus on the unravelling of the role
of the nursing managers along with nurses
in the medication safety.
The major limitation of the study can be attributed to
the use of the last email address of the participant
recruitment procedures. Another limitation is the small
sample size requirement which mainly resulted in the
reduction of the representativeness of the research
results.
The study also helped in identifying the prominence of
the different nursing disruptive behaviours in the
violation of the medication safety practices. This result
would be also helpful on the development of the
hypothesis for conducting a large scale researches
(Bernard, 2017).

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