A Study of Assessing the Knowledge and Attitude of Nurses Regarding Medication Administration and Barriers in Reporting Medication Error in a Tertiary Care Teaching Hospital in Gangtok

Medication administration is a complex multistep process with a role of clinician in prescribing and transcribing, and nurse in administering drugs and monitoring patient's response. Error in any step can be a major threat to the safety of patients. Thus, the present study was trying to assess the level of knowledge and attitude of nurses regarding medication administration, pharmacology applied to nursing and barriers in reporting medication error. Also, its correlations with demographic variables. After obtaining the ethical clearance, a cross-sectional study with 141 nurses was conducted using a set of self-administered questionnaires. The questionnaire included demographic details, multiple choice question and five points of Likert scale related to nursing pharmacology, medication administration, reasons for committing medication error, and the barriers in reporting medication errors. Data was analyzed using both descriptive and inferential statistics (Pearson correlation). The findings of the study showed that only 38% nurses had an adequate knowledge regarding drug calculation and pharmacology applied to nursing, scoring more than 80%. A significant correlation (0.184) was found between knowledge and education level of nursing staffs (<i>p</i> = 0.05). But at the same time nurses follow proper medication administration process and had a favorable attitude toward medication error in real practice. Fear of getting blamed was found to be the highest perceived barrier in reporting medication error. The study concluded that a regular update in knowledge regarding medication administration of nurses is required and trust building by the organization among their staff is required to overcome the fear of getting blamed.