Errors in drug administration are the second cause of errors in hospitalized patients. Children are a high risk group. Besides, pressure in care interventions at emergency department leads to increase incidence errors.
Aim: Determining nurses' knowledge about the most common drug doses at pediatric urgency department.
Methods: Descriptive transversal study. We collected data from nurses of 14 pediatric emergency departments of Madrid. With an "ad hoc" questionnaire we collected the following data during five days in January of 2014: demographic, knowledge of responsibility in administration and doses of drugs. Global descriptive analysis was made and it was stratified by hospital and work experience.
Results: The answer rate was 114 (34.9%). Only 80 (70.8%) of nurses confirm doses before their administration; 20 (18.6%) think that a wrong prescription that they administer is not their responsibility. There is a high knowledge in the group with more than five years of work experience, except for sedative-analgesic drugs (p<0.05). The average score obtained was 3.8 of 10 (1.99).
Conclusions: Nurses' knowledge about drug doses is low.
Keywords: Conocimiento; Emergency nursing; Enfermería de urgencias; Errores de medicación; Knowledge; Medication errors; Pediatrics; Pediatría.
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