Where do nursing students make mistakes when calculating drug doses? A retrospective study

Area of Science:

• Nursing Education
• Pharmacology
• Medical Calculation

Background:

• International research indicates nursing students face significant challenges with drug dosage calculations.
• Targeted teaching interventions require identifying specific error patterns in dosage calculations.

Purpose of the Study:

• To analyze the specific types and locations of errors made by nursing students in drug dosage calculations.
• To inform pedagogical strategies for improving drug calculation proficiency.

Main Methods:

• Retrospective analysis of 863 drug dosage calculation exercises from a 3-year nursing degree program.
• Categorization of errors into 23 predefined types, including unit conversion and complex concepts.
• Descriptive and bivariate analysis to identify error patterns and their relation to final answer accuracy.

Main Results:

• Overall accuracy was 52.7%, with significant variation by exercise type (89.2% for basic doses vs. 2.9% for maximum concentration).
• Common errors included unit conversion, understanding maximum concentration/minimum dilution, and contextualizing answers.
• Students frequently failed to extract key information, include units, or comprehend the question.

Conclusions:

• Nursing students encounter difficulties with complex drug dosage calculations.
• Key error areas involve task comprehension, understanding core concepts, and procedural execution.