An Evaluaton of the Drug Calculaton Skills of Registered Nurses in the Critcal Care Department at a Tertary Hospital in KSA Adel Musbah Awajeh * , Marwan Rasmi Issa, Anas Abuelian, Sandra L Holmes, Ashraf Hussein and Pejay J Parameaswari King Saud Medical City, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia * Corresponding author: Adel Musbah Awajeh, Senior Nurse Educator, King Saud Medical City, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, Tel: +966-564653194; E-mail: adel79mosbah@gmail.com Received: April 02, 2019; Accepted: April 09, 2019; Published: April 15, 2019 Citaton: Awajeh AM, Issa MR, Abuelian A, Holmes SL, Hussein A, et al. (2019) An Evaluaton of the Drug Calculaton Skills of Registered Nurses in the Critcal Care Department at a Tertary Hospital in KSA. J Nurs Health Stud Vol.4 No.1:3. Abstract Background: Mathematcal skills are essental for nurses to ensure the accuracy of drug dose before performing medicaton administraton and also important in prevent medicaton errors. Objectve: This study are to evaluate the drug calculaton skills of critcal care department (CCD) registered nurses at King Saud Medical City. A Convenience sample size of 220 CCD nurses 200 completed questonnaire and drug calculaton competency skill test. Method: A cross-sectonal survey with drug calculaton competency test for CCD nurses. Data analysis was conducted using SPSS (Statstcal Package for the Social Sciences). Result: According to data analysis, 13.9% of partcipant nurses were unable to get score >80% on drug calculaton test. Average score on the skill test exam was 86.1% (SD=0.50). The Largest proportons of incorrect answers were in vasopressors dose calculaton. Conclusion: This artcle highlighted drug calculaton errors were signifcant in critcal care nurses. The common causes of medicaton errors according to surveyed nurse’s feedback related to frequently changing medicaton orders, nurses sufer from workload. Keywords: Drug calculatons; Medicaton errors; Critcal care department Literature Review Drug calculaton skills are essental for the accuracy of drug dosing while performing medicaton administraton in healthcare insttutons [1,2]. Accurate Drug calculaton and administraton is an essental part of the nursing practce [3]. Many research have identfed that medicaton errors associated with inaccurate drug calculaton and poor mathematcal skills of nurses stll problem [3,4]. Approximately 40% of daily nursing task are related to drug interventons or medicaton administraton [5,6]. Medicaton errors include wrong dose, incorrect side efect, and drug omission without clinical justfcaton, incorrect tme, incorrect route, drug calculaton errors, incorrect patent, and allergy-related errors [7-9]. Although errors occur at every stage of the drug preparaton and distributon process [7,9-11], one-third of those that harm patents occur during the administraton phase [12]. Many medicaton errors occur as a result of limited pharmaceutcal knowledge and wrong drug calculaton [2,12,13]. A descriptve study of 110 Registered Nurses and found that 81% of nurses surveyed were unable to pass 90% of drug calculaton test conducted by Bindler and Bayne [4]. Urgent atenton into drug calculaton skills of registered nurses [14]. In the intensive care unit (ICU) at King Saud Medical City patent estmated medicaton errors of 1.7 per patent per day were found [5]. Nurses in the critcal care department (CCD) administer a variety of medicatons for critcally ill patents. These medicatons need precise drug calculaton. Many, including inotropes, vasopressors, and sedatves are given based on weight and concentraton in microgram and per minute. Research indicates nurses drug calculaton skills need to improve [15,16]. To achieve this, we should apply medicaton competencies (calculaton, administraton) for all ICU nurses for contnuous improvement and training and to prevent medicaton errors [16]. Medicaton educaton encompassing mathematcal and conceptual drug calculaton skills should be identfed as a specifc competency in ICU nursing educatonal programs and provided on a contnuing basis [17]. Study Purpose (Methodology) This cross-sectonal study was conducted in the Critcal Care Department in KSMC (King Saud Medical City, Riyadh, KSA). A total 220 questonnaires distributed in a convenience sample method to critcal care nurses in four intensive care departments: T1A1, T1B1, T1A2 and TRCU over a fve- month period July and November 2018. Method This cross-sectonal survey with drug calculaton competency test for ICU nurses approved by IRB commitee at KSMC. The Review Article iMedPub Journals http://www.imedpub.com/ DOI: 10.36648/2574-2825.1000042 Journal of Nursing and Health Studies ISSN 2574-2825 Vol.4 No.1:3 2019 © Under License of Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License | This article is available from: http://www.imedpub.com/nursing-and-health-studies/ 1