The Effect of Modern Educational Strategies in Reducing Intravenous Drug Administration Error: A Non-Randomized Clinical Trial

Introduction: Among medication errors, intravenous medication administration errors are especially important. The lack of medication information can be one of the causes of medication errors. Using electronic education may facilitate quick access to the update resources. The objective of this study is the evaluation of an appropriate educational strategy to reduce intravenous drug administration errors by staff, including error in drug dosage, before-, during- and after- prescription assessment, evaluation of injection site, proper solvent selection, volume of solvent, length of injection, and patient training. Methods: This is a single group interventional study, carried out in three hospital wards of Shiraz University of Medical Sciences in 2008-9. Samples were intravenous drugs prescribed by nursing staff. Intravenous administrations was observed and recorded before and 6 months after the educational intervention. Educational intervention for all nursing staff responsible for drug administration, was a workshop composed of a blend of lectures, practice, reflection and E-learning opportunities on medication errors and resources. Data analysis was done with MC-Nemar and binomial tests. Results: In this study, evaluations of errors in 603 administrations of intravenous medication (30 drugs) have been done regarding ten variables. After education, there was a decreased frequency of errors in before prescription assessment (60.5% to 6.6%), evaluation of injection site (25.3% to 3.4%), length of injection (50.1% to 27.6%), during prescription assessment (42.7% to 16.7), after prescription assessment (42.3% to 17.2%) and patient training (91.2% to 75.6%) (P < 0.05). Conclusion: The use of modern strategies and introducing rsources (electronic data bases and sofwares) in hospital wards is important in decreasing medication errors, as it facilitates the nurses’ access to the update sources of medication information.