Critical Appraisal of Nurses' Experiences and Perspectives on Medication Safety Practices

This paper critically appraises a study on nurses' experiences and perspectives on medication safety practices. The study aimed to explore the experiences of nurses in trying to prevent medication administration errors that would help tailor the nursing profession in implementing safety practices. The research design and methods, findings, and their relevance are discussed in detail.

Running head: CRITICAL APPRAISAL 1
Critical Appraisal
Name
Institutional Affiliation

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Critical Appraisal
Introduction
Nurses play very pivotal role when it comes to drug administration. They act as
watchdogs for the doctors in the management of a patient’s health and recovery process in
hospitals and clinics (Bryman, 2017). During this process of health management and drug
prescription, nurses are bound to make mistakes that can lead into serious health
complications on the patient receiving this medication. Therefore, it is crucial for the nursing
profession to realize that medication and administration errors is a pharmaceutical mistake
that have to be eliminated by using multidisciplinary approach. Statistics shows that 34% of
prescription errors in hospitals occur during drug administration (Edvardsson, Watt, &
Pearce, 2017).
This paper will critically appraise the following article; “Smeulers, M., Onderwater,
A. T., Zwieten, M. C., & Vermeulen, H. (2014). Nurses' experiences and perspectives on
medication safety practices: an explorative qualitative study. Journal of nursing
management, 22(3), 276-285. This study article meant to explore the experiences and the
nurses perspective on the medication safety practices. The appraisal will dig deep into the
various aspects of nurses experience discovered in this article and the methods used to come
up with the findings.
The Research Problem and Its Significance
The main objective of this study is to explore the experience of nurses in trying to
prevent medication administration errors that would help tailor the nursing profession in
implementing safety practices (Smeulers, Onderwater, Zwieten, & Vermeulen, 2014).
Achieving this safety measures is an important strategy that will eventually help improve
health care. Many patients have been victims of medication errors, which have caused them

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complications on diseases they registered to be suffering from, and this has caused their
health to deteriorate due to human error.
Medication errors range from under dosage, administering the wrong drug, over dose,
mistaken identity in drug administration and the wrong combination of drugs being
prescribed to a patient (Irvine, Drew, & Sainsbury, 2013). Other common complications
include prolonged hospital stay that can lead into nosocomial infections, drug toxicities, and
accidental physical injury (Keers, Williams, Cooke, & Ashcroft, 2015). The nurses role has
been clearly defined to be monitoring of patients, this include administration of drugs hence
there involvement in this study design. Considering that nurses’ primary role is to administer
drugs, it is important for the nursing industry to conduct intensive research that will help
eliminate the errors in drug administration to save the patients from any further complications
(Lewis, 2015). This will in a long run improve the patient care and increase the level of trust
between the nurses and patients. Therefore, there is need for the concerned parties to conduct
clinical based evidence to achieve the desired outcome.
Research Design and Methods
The study conducted is qualitative based on the interview carried out on the 20 nurses
in a medical center between the month of March and December 2011 (Smeulers, Onderwater,
Zwieten, & Vermeulen, 2014). Its aim was to understand the nurses’ experience on drug
administration errors hence making the qualitative study approach more suitable than
quantitative study design. There are a number of qualitative study designs used researches;
however, the author found that the grounded theory was more effective in this case
considering the study sample size and the nature of the participants (McLeod, Barber, &
Franklin, 2015). The author could not have found the best results if a narrative, case study, or
phenomenology was used.

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The use of snowball to identify the 20 study samples is the major weakness of this
study. Snowball sampling is a non-probability method of sampling that is prone to bias from
the author (Radley rt al., 2013). It is even worse in this case, since the biased selected
participants goes ahead and select another participant of their choice (Smeulers, Onderwater,
Zwieten, & Vermeulen, 2014). This shows that the researcher has little control of the study
sample and has no true number of the distribution population and sample.
Despite the challenges in sampling methods used, it is not easy to separate the
researchers’ opinions and assumptions on the study criteria adopted for the research. The
research was also not biased on gender since it accommodated any individual who was
interested to take part in the research. However, the researchers should have used a large
population of up to 50 to get a wide variety of data for analysis, which could have been more
resourceful.
Data was collected using semi structured face-to-face interviews. This is one of the
most effective means of collecting qualitative data since it gives both the researcher and the
interviewee the capability of exploring deep into the subject matter (Robinson, 2014). It also
allows the interviewer to get the feelings of the interviewee and the value of the subject in
their lives.
. Findings and their Relevance
Three themes emerged from this research. This includes the role of nurses and their
responsibility when it comes to medication safety. The study discovered that it’s not only
important to have safe preparation and administration process but also have proficient nurses
who have good reasoning that is essential in achieving medication safety (Smeulers,
Onderwater, Zwieten, & Vermeulen, 2014). The second theme is the ability of nurses to work
safely. The researchers found out that the knowledge of risks and the work of nurses’

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experience influence their ability to work safely (Smeulers, Onderwater, Zwieten, &
Vermeulen, 2014). The last theme identified was the acceptance of nurses on the safety
practices. Unlocking their advantages and effectiveness in health will gear towards accepting
the safety practices (Smeulers, Onderwater, Zwieten, & Vermeulen, 2014).
The study revealed that nurses believe that their experience is the most crucial part in
preventing medication errors since it is their knowledge in medication administration that is
important. Therefore, the nursing profession requires a continuous learning environment that
allows them to develop their art and science of the nursing profession (Vaismoradi, Jordan,
Turunen, & Bondas, 2014).
Conclusion
Medication safety is a very essential part in the nursing practice. The researchers
provided a base for considering this issue before it gets over hand by conducting evidence
based nursing practice. Nurses’ experiences are very close to the assumption that they are in
a better position to achieve safe medication management (Smeulers, Onderwater, Zwieten, &
Vermeulen, 2014). Continuously performing their role gives them the sharping edge of
performing their duties effectively and assessing the risks of medication with enough
experience.
The findings in this research should be used by nurse professionals to eliminate the
medication errors that occur due to negligence or lack of sufficient knowledge in drug
administration. Creating an environment that allows the professional to expand their
knowledge on drug administration is very important (Smeulers, Onderwater, Zwieten, &
Vermeulen, 2014). Such learning programs should be implemented in hospital to help nurses
familiarize their understanding this administration procedures and nurses who divert from the

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set standards and procedures done during drug administration should be punished to help
install discipline that will eventually guarantee the safety of patients.

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References
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integration. In Mixing methods: Qualitative and quantitative research (pp. 57-78).
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experiences and perspectives on medication safety practices: an explorative
qualitative study. Journal of nursing management, 22(3), 276-285.
Vaismoradi, M., Jordan, S., Turunen, H., & Bondas, T. (2014). Nursing students' perspectives
of the cause of medication errors. Nurse education today, 34(3), 434-440.