Is medication administration in the elderly influenced by nurses’ demographics in South Africa?
Health SA Gesondheid
| Field | Value | |
| Title | Is medication administration in the elderly influenced by nurses’ demographics in South Africa? | |
| Creator | Nicholson, Emerentia C. Damons, Anneleen | |
| Description | Background: Globally, nurses are increasingly employed post-retirement, with task-shifting to nurses with lower competencies, a lack of knowledge being a barrier, all of which could lead to medication errors.Aim: To describe the impact of nurses’ age, experience, training, and skill mix on the medication administration processes in long-term care facilities (LTCFs).Setting: Nurses (N=123) working in 28 LTCFs in the Western Cape province, South Africa.Methods: A quantitative non-experimental, cross-sectional descriptive design was used. The LTCFs were divided into funded (state-subsidised) and private (for profit) facilities using a stratified sampling method and each stratum thereafter randomised to obtain equal samples from each stratum. Self-administered questionnaires with close-ended statements were used, and statistical software (SPSS version 27) to perform descriptive and inferential analyses.Results: Respondents, (27%), had more than nine years of experience, with 15.8% aged 61-70 years; and 3.5% aged 71-80 years. Some were ‘very inexperienced’ in computer use (29.3%), 35% received medication training longer than five years ago, and n=28 nurses administered medication outside their scope of practice. The highest sources of job pressure were an increase in workloads (75.6%), being under stress (42.3%), and being overworked (39.0%).Conclusion: The aging nursing workforce, although experienced, found the job demands, paperwork, and technology barriers. Outdated training and delegating medication administration to lower categories of nurses can lead to medication errors.Contribution: This study’s findings can serve as a guideline for creating succession plans, recruiting procedures, development, and training of nurses, and improving clinical practices. | |
| Publisher | AOSIS Publishing | |
| Date | 2022-03-18 | |
| Identifier | 10.4102/hsag.v27i0.1750 | |
| Source | Health SA Gesondheid; Vol 27 (2022); 8 pages 2071-9736 1025-9848 | |
| Language | eng | |
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