Assessments of Safe Medication Administration in Nursing Education

Abstract

Background: QSEN has a variety of suggested strategies for teaching safe medication administration; however they do not have a recommendation for how to assess it.  The purpose of this study was to gain information on how safe medication administration is assessed in nursing education.

Methods: A survey was developed to identify methods used by nursing faculty members to assess nursing students’ knowledge and skills of safe medication administration.  The specific research questions addressed in the survey were: 1) How is safe medication administration assessed prior to students entering the clinical area, 2) How is safe medication administration assessed during clinical, 3) How is knowledge of “right drug” assessed in the classroom and 4) How is knowledge of “right dose” assessed in the classroom setting.

Results: The results of the survey indicated no standardized method for assessing safe medication administration in nursing education.

Conclusions: There is much variation in how and when safe medication administration is assessed in the education setting. There is a need for a valid and reliable comprehensive assessment of safe medication administration in order to evaluate whether nursing students have the knowledge, skills and attitude to safely administrate medications.