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Updated: May 18, 2026
06:59
A Novel Approach for the Administration of Medications and Fluids in Emergency Scenarios and Settings
Published on: November 9, 2016
Medication safety in emergency departments: a mixed methods study
Hande Tüzün1, Fatma Cebeci2, Songül Bişkin Çetin3
1Surgical Nursing PhD Program, Institute of Healt Sciences, Akdeniz University, Antalya, 07058, Türkiye.
BMC Emergency Medicine
|May 16, 2026
Summary
Medication safety competence in emergency departments is not just individual skill, but influenced by workload and culture. Enhancing patient safety requires system-level changes alongside education for nurses.
Area of Science:
- Nursing Science
- Patient Safety Research
- Healthcare Management
Background:
- Medication safety competence is crucial for patient safety, especially in high-acuity emergency departments (EDs).
- ED environments present unique challenges to medication safety due to workflow instability.
- Limited research exists on how medication safety competence is enacted in ED settings.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the enactment of medication safety competence among emergency nurses.
- To identify factors influencing the consistent application of medication safety practices in EDs.
- To explore the relationship between individual attributes, professional development, and organizational factors.
Main Methods:
- Convergent mixed-methods design utilizing quantitative (Medication Safety Competence Scale, N=122) and qualitative (open-ended questions) data.
- Data collected from nurses in two urban tertiary teaching hospitals (July-September 2024).
- Quantitative analysis involved descriptive statistics and inferential tests; qualitative analysis used inductive content analysis; integration via joint display.
Main Results:
- Nurses aged 30-39 and those with ≥5 years of experience reported higher scores in patient-centered medication management (p < .05).
- Overall self-reported medication safety competence was high, particularly in patient-centered management and nursing responsibility.
- Qualitative themes included self-assessment learning, medication safety culture development, and efficient management; enactment was hindered by workload, interruptions, and error reporting climate.
Conclusions:
- Medication safety competence is a context-dependent capacity, not solely an individual trait.
- Professional development, collaborative culture, and organizational conditions significantly shape competence enactment.
- Interventions must integrate educational and system-level approaches for consistent application in emergency clinical practice.
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