NSG2NMR | Nursing Assessment

NSG2NMR Assessment 2 1
NSG2NMR Assessment 2
Name of the Author
Name of the University

NSG2NMR Assessment 2 2
Introduction
One of the most common and serious problems in the world that affect patient safety and
may even lead to the death of the patient is medication error (Gorgich, Barfroshan, Ghoreishi &
Yaghoobi, 2015). A large number of research studies have been performed to find ways so that
medication errors can be reduced. For proper implementation of the best practice, nurses should
critique earlier findings of the research.
Two articles on medication error will be examined through this essay. After providing a
summary of both articles, these articles will be critiqued based on their reliability and legitimacy.
Ultimately, the contribution of these articles in improving medication errors will be assessed.
Summary
The first article that will be examined by this essay is titled “Factors influencing a nurse’s
decision to question the medication administration in a neonatal care unit”. The main purpose
was to determine the key factors impacting the decisions of a nurse to question the important
aspects of administration of medication within a NCCU (Aydon, Hauck, Zimmer & Murdoch,
2016).
In this experiment, a qualitative exploratory approach was applied to find the influence of
factors on a nurse decision in a NCCU. All nurses who were employed in the NCCU in the two
hospitals in Western Australia were asked to contribute in the experiment. Around one hundred
and three nurses have participated in the experiment in which they were introduced to a critical
incident design. To complete this experiment, they had to concentrate and question on a clinical
incident which was related to an issue about medication. During the experiment, two questions
were asked to the participant nurses. According to the first question, they had to explain a

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clinical situation in which they had decided to question the feature of medication administration.
According to the second question, they had to describe a situation in the hospital in which they
had decided not to enquire about the feature of medication administration. This interview was
taken in a silent room in a setting of the hospital. These interviews were noted by a digital voice
recorder. Every interview lasted for about five to seven minutes. Additionally, demographic data
were also gathered consisting of the level of education, the status of employment, experience in
neonatal clinic, and experience of working within the unit.
Based on the results of the experiment conducted, among one hundred and three nurses
participated in the experiment, around 47 were working full time, 39 of them had a qualification
of undergraduate nursing, 33 nurses had more than 10 years of experience of working in NCCU,
and 46 of them had experience of working in neonatal nursing for more than ten years. A total
number of incidents that were questioned by the nurses described were about one hundred and
three. A total number of incidents that were not questioned by the nurses described were about
sixty-two. Around forty-one nurses had no incidents to describe as they had always enquired the
medication administration.
Based on the findings of the experiment, about three themes and thirteen subthemes were
revealed in the initial thirty-six categories. Three themes included working environment, doing
the right thing, and knowledge about medication. The first theme “working environment” has
covered the positive and negative impact of the relationships between working staff and issues
regarding workload. According to the second theme, nurses described their responsibility in the
hospital and answerability of the care which they offer to the patients. Based on the third theme,
the nurses have described their experience in nursing and confidence in providing resources.

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Some of the nurses described the positive impact of their workload and relationship with the
working staff and some of them described the negative impact.
According to a survey, the impact of the working environment contributed a lot in
influencing medication administration errors. Therefore, it is important to raise awareness
against this issue among nurses and for secondary tasks, additional nurses must be assigned with
secondary tasks to lower workload (Getnet & Bifftu, 2017). This will improve the knowledge of
the nurses regarding medication administration also (Zarea, Mohammadi, Beiranvand, Hassani &
Baraz, 2018).
As the second theme suggested, the nurses frequently questioned about certain
medication administration before performing it so that they could do the right thing and take care
of the patients properly. A research study has suggested that nurses should have a balance
between responsibility and accountability. To reduce errors in medication administration, the
authority of the nurses must be balanced with other things. It can be done by the determination
and application of the rights of the nurses for medication administration (Jones & Treiber, 2018).
Also, the nurses should feel comfortable in questioning about the medication before
administrating it to the patient to provide proper care to prevent medication errors. This is due to
the increasing seriousness of medication errors and its outcomes (Huynh et al., 2016).
Based on the third theme, the nurses described they mostly follow protocols and revise it
time to time to administer medication properly with reduced errors. Another research study also
described that incorrect calculation and dosing of medication may cause severe effects on the
patients’ health. Therefore, the nurses must be provided with the proper training to understand
safety issues and the impact of incorrect dosing (Shamsuddin & Shafie, 2012).