Development and Application During Clinical Simulation of MEDISIM, A Checklist for Assessing Nursing Students’ Competence in Safe Medication Administration

Abstract

Aim

To develop and apply during clinical simulation a checklist for assessing nursing students' competence in safe medication administration.

Design and Method

Two-stage instrumental study: 1) Development and preliminary validation of the checklist; 2) observational study of first- and second-year students to assess reliability of the checklist and analyze the results obtained. The observation involved simulation scenarios in which students had to administer intravenous medication.

Results and Conclusions

The MEDISIM checklist comprises 26 items and shows good psychometric properties (Cronbach's alpha = .842; inter-observer reliability = .974). A high proportion of students were observed to have adequate needle technique (86%) and to wash their hands prior to preparing medication” (72%), whereas far fewer disinfected the catheter hub before administering medication (18%) or checked for drug allergies (33%). Mean scores (out of a possible 26) were 15.2 (SD 4.54) among year 1 students and 18.0 (SD 5.29) for year 2 students (p < .001). The results obtained highlight areas that need to be addressed in nurse education, as well as by students in their independent learning.