ABSTRACT

Planned as a descriptive study, the aim of this research was to determine the errors in parenteral medication administration in a surgical intensive care unit. The universe was the drug administrations in the surgical intensive care unit at Gölcük Naval Hospital during one year period, and samples were drug administrations performed between February 16, 2004 and April 30, 2004. Data were collected with the Medication Errors Observation Form prepared by the researcher after reviewing the literature. This form included the items about the principles of drug administration. Drug administrations were recorded with the method of observation. Frequencies and percentages were used in analysis of the data. Four hundred and fourty four errors were detected in administrations of parenteral medications in 109 patients. Prophylactic antibiotics were the drugs mostly given (39.86%). Intravenous and intramuscular routes constituted 83.11% and 16.89% of all medication administrations. According to the results, medication errors were "Not washing hands before drug administration" (99.54%), "Not washing hands after drug administation" (83.55%), "Not transforming verbal orders into written order" (78.82%), "Not cleaning the enjection site by antiseptic cotton before drug administration" (49.32%), "Not taking written orders appropriately" (45.04%), "Not preparing drugs appropriately" (33.55%), "Not administering drugs with appropriate technique" (35.55%), "Not discarding the items after administration" (18.69%), "Giving drugs that were not written in order" (4.27%), "Not giving or skipping drugs that were written in order (1.80%), and "Administering wrong dose" (0.22%).