Objective: To determine the knowledge and attitude of nurses regarding medication administration and barriers in reporting medication errors in a tertiary care hospital in India

Methods: In an exploratory cross-sectional survey, a pre-tested and validated questionnaire on knowledge and attitude regarding medication administration and barriers in reporting medication errors in a tertiary care hospital in India  was self administered to 296 conveniently selected nursing personnel working in indoor facilities of medical and surgical disciplines of a tertiary health care facility. The data was collected and analysed from June 2013 to Aug 2013.

Results: Out of 296 nursing personnel enrolled, majority were females (83.4%)   in the age group of 25-29 years (42.6%) with the professional qualification of General Nursing and Midwifery (64.2%). Sixty eight percentage of the participants were working in general wards.   

 The mean knowledge score of nurses regarding medication administration was 9.76±2.4, which indicates average level of knowledge. Incidence of medication error as reported by the subjects through the self- administered questionnaire is 53.7%, whereas 92.45% among them reported this error to the competent authority and the rest did not report the error. The major reasons for committing medication error as identified by the nurses were work overload (44.65%) and illegible handwriting of the prescriber in the instruction book (22.64%).     

Multiple comparisons using Bonferroni test revealed that staff in the age group of 25-29 has significantly higher level of knowledge as compared to those who are in the age group of 30-34 (p=0.002) and 35 and above(p=0.000). The nurses working in the ICUs have the highest mean score of knowledge (10.57) as compared to nurses working in other areas like ward, OPD, Emergency and OT. The nurses working in the ICU have a significantly higher level of knowledge (p=0.006) as compared to nurses working in OPD. Nurses with GNM have a significantly lower level of knowledge as compared to nurses with BSc Nursing (p=0.000) and Post Basic BSc Nursing(p=0.001).

Conclusion: The study revealed that nurses have average level of knowledge regarding medication administration which need to be updated regularly. The major factor identified by nurses leading to medication error was increased workload. Most of the time errors in the system lead to errors in the medication errors. 

Key words:  Knowledge, Attitude, Nursing Personnel, Medication Error