Medication errors by nursing students on clinical practice: An integrative review

Medication errors are a serious concern and often due to multiple factors. The largest workforce in healthcare are nurses. Nurses play a major role in medication management especially in medication administration. To become proficient in safe medication administration undergraduate nurses, need to be provided with adequate training in clinical settings. Aim This integrative review aims to identify literature that reports medication errors including prevalence, types, causes and barriers of reporting whilst nursing students are on clinical placement.

A review was conducted of five electronic databases to identify original empirical research published between 2007 and 2021. An integrative review method using Strengthening the Report of Observational Studies in Epidemiology guidelines was used to direct this review.

The initial search yielded 1574 articles. A total of six full text articles met the eligibility criteria were reviewed. The prevalence of medication errors made by nursing students on clinical placement was 6-1.1%. Causes were due to student, education and environmental factors. Types of errors medication calculations, incorrect name of patient, wrong medication and omission of medication administration.

This review confirms previous studies with 10-5% of all errors by nurses are medication errors in hospitals. Strategies to improve medication administration are increasing staffing, communication, education and supervision of students.

Medication administration is a multifactorial process that involves medication skills. Closer supervision, improved education on technology and consistency is required in number of rights of medication administration.