Exploring Nurses' Experiences of Medication Administration Errors

Guided questions Answer Template (Please do not Remove the questions)
Guided Question Qualitative Study Quantitative Study
1. Aim and
Significance (5
marks 200 words)
a. What was the aim and
significance of the study? Aim- The study aims at exploring nurses’
experiences of medication administration
errors in clinical practise and focusses on
their perspectives on how to prevent
medication administration errors.
Significance – The study provides insight
into nurses’ experiences that resulted in
medication administration errors and how
they can be analysed to implement safety
practices(McFadden, Stock & Gowen,
2015)
Aim- The study aims to understand the reasonable
association or correlation between social support in
clinical environment and a safe, guided medication
practice amongst new nurses.
Significance – Nowadays, organizations are moving
towards are a cooperative and positive work
environment but unsupportive behaviours in workplace
(Sahay, Hutchinson & East, 2015) are prevalent in
most health care settings. Recent passed out graduate
nurses are mostly vulnerable to new unsupportive
climates. This is a recognised cause giving away to a
higher risk of medication administration errors (World

Health Organization, 2016).
2. Methods (10 marks
700 words)
a. Identify the
research design used
in the study and was
it appropriate for the
issue discussed?
A semi structured interview is used as a
data collection method. Coding,
consensus meetings, author coding and
author review is used as data analysis
method. Yes, the design uses a mixed
analytic method for a thematic analysis(
Braun et al., 2019) which is appropriate to
decipher the ‘causes’ of error experience in
formulation of new safety protocols.
A survey with descriptive and explanatory
research design is used. The research tried to establish
a correlation between conceptual and operational
understandings. The design is appropriate for the study
because the survey conducted is descriptive in nature
instead of being just a rating evaluation or
questionnaire marking. So in spite of being quantitative,
it also provides a part qualitative analysis as well.
b. Discuss the sampling
technique, inclusion and
exclusion criteria used for
the selection of sample in
the study
Snowball sampling is used as a sampling
technique. (Emerson, 2015).
Inclusion criteria – participants needs to be
registered nurses, they should have been
requested by email, some nurses has to be
from managerial levels
Exclusion criteria – similar attitude,
disruptive behaviour, absolutely novice.
A random sampling method is used (Palinkas et al.,
2015).
Inclusion criteria – nurses has to be recent graduates
passed from three participant Australian schools of
nursing and who are within first 18–24 months of
clinical practice after finishing the degree.
Exclusion criteria – disruptive behaviour, disruptive
addictive habits.

c. Explore the data
collection method and its
appropriateness to the
research design of the
study
Semi-structured individual interviews (n =
20) were conducted. Each interview lasted
for about 60–90 minutes. When planning
for alteration in clinical medication
administration procedures, potential
facilitators, barriers (Jun, Kovner &
Stimpfel, 2016) were addressed along with
the behavioural features of the
professionals involved. Organisational and
sociocultural context of the ‘error’ should be
handled as well. At the end of interview
process, the nurse participants reflected on
their tasks. Anonymity and wilful withdrawal
was reassured. Participants were explained
that the interview focusses on gaining their
personal perspective on clinical
environment, clinical practices. A written
consent was then taken from all the nurse
participants. The interviews were fully
Three Australian universities participated whose
databases contained nearly 1425 recent nursing
graduates. Respondents were recruited through the
databases. A sample of 427 possible respondents was
potentially asserted in the beginning. For the study, a
survey web link was then emailed to the recent
graduates by an administrator of each university. The
concerned research team did not get involved directly.
To follow, email reminders were sent to the graduates
for three fortnights by the same administrators for
improving success rates. Finally, a total 58 recent
nursing graduates finished the research study.
Given the aim of the study, a descriptive survey data
collection method (Johnston, 2017) provides a right mix
of analytic and subjective data collection, needed to
understand the correlation between unsupportive
workplace and medication administration errors.
Moreover, survey method provides a convenient data
gathering and high representativeness which is suitable