Journal of Medical & Surgical Pathology
Open Access
ISSN: 2472-4971
ISSN: 2472-4971
Marie Bernard
St. Thomas University, USA
Posters & Accepted Abstracts: J Med Surg Pathol
Statement of the Problem: Competence in dosage calculation represents a challenge that seems to be almost insurmountable for nurses as well as nursing students. The lived experiences of nursing students in the context of learning medication dosage calculation have not been explored for description and interpretation.
Aim: The purpose of this study was to gain more insight about undergraduate nursing students’ lived experiences in learning medication dosage calculation.
Methods: A purposive sample was selected to investigate the following question: What are the lived experiences of undergraduate nursing students studying medication dosage calculation? Data were collected through face-to-face semi-structured interviews, which the researcher transcribed verbatim, and the participants reviewed for validation. The combined interpretive and descriptive method of van Manen guided the characteristics of the thematic data analysis conducted to determine the findings.
Results: The related themes of signifying, repeating, analyzing, verifying, maintaining consistency are tied to the overarching theme of assuring safety, which emerged as the essence of the participants’ lived world of learning drug dosage calculation.
Conclusion: This study contributed, to some extent to filling the empirical gap identified in the literature review. These participants gave rich, in-depth accounts of how they embodied drug dosage calculation to attain competence that they need to administer correct dosage of medications to their patients. The researcher identified implications for nursing practice, nursing education, and nursing research.