Competency-Based Medication Administration and Error Reporting.

Area of Science:

• Nursing Education
• Patient Safety
• Clinical Skills Development

Background:

• Medication administration accuracy is crucial, requiring both habit formation and clinical reasoning.
• Prelicensure nursing students' medication administration accuracy and error reporting were investigated.
• An evidence-based checklist, C-MATCH-REASON©, was developed for oral medication administration.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate the effectiveness of the C-MATCH-REASON© checklist in improving medication administration accuracy.
• To assess the impact of the checklist on error reporting among nursing students.
• To determine if the checklist enhances rule adherence and reduces medication errors.

Main Methods:

• A pilot study utilized a crossover design with 19 prelicensure nursing students.
• Participants were randomly assigned to use the checklist (A) or not (B) in simulation scenarios.
• Nursing faculty observed and recorded error data using a standardized form.

Main Results:

• The C-MATCH-REASON© checklist significantly improved rule adherence (p = .005).
• Checklist use led to significant reductions in knowledge-based errors (p = .011) and total errors (p = .010).
• No significant difference was found in errors found (p = .061) or reported (p = .144), potentially due to sample size.

Conclusions:

• The C-MATCH-REASON© checklist demonstrates effectiveness in reducing medication administration errors.
• Further research with larger sample sizes is recommended to validate these findings.
• The checklist shows promise as a tool to enhance accuracy in nursing practice.