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

Area of Science:

• Nursing Education
• Patient Safety
• Healthcare Quality

Background:

• Medication errors are a significant patient safety concern in healthcare.
• Nurses are the largest healthcare workforce and play a critical role in medication administration.
• Undergraduate nursing students require adequate clinical training for proficient and safe medication administration.

Purpose of the Study:

• To identify literature reporting on medication errors made by nursing students during clinical placements.
• To analyze the prevalence, types, causes, and reporting barriers of these medication errors.

Main Methods:

• An integrative review methodology was employed.
• A systematic search of five electronic databases was conducted for original empirical research published between 2007 and 2021.
• The Strengthening the Reporting of Observational Studies in Epidemiology (STROBE) guidelines were used.

Main Results:

• Six full-text articles met the eligibility criteria from an initial 1574 articles.
• The prevalence of medication errors by nursing students on clinical placement ranged from 6% to 1.1%.
• Identified causes included student-related, educational, and environmental factors, with error types encompassing calculation mistakes, wrong patient/medication, and omissions.

Conclusions:

• This review corroborates that medication errors constitute a substantial portion (10-5%) of all errors made by nurses in hospitals.
• Strategies to enhance medication administration safety include increased staffing, improved communication, targeted education, and closer student supervision.
• Enhancing medication administration requires addressing multifactorial elements, emphasizing closer supervision, better technology education, and consistent adherence to the rights of medication administration.