Numeracy needs ofthe beginning Registered Nurse

The literature indicates: ng students demonstrate serious numeracy skills deficits. sus that such skills are necessary, particularly for medication administration. stic testing and remediation are desirable, or basic mathematics is pre-requisite for entry into nursing courses. ation skills mastered at one point in time diminish if ongoing practise is not maintained. equency with which nurses perform drug calculation in the clinical setting is decreasing. tudy aimed to identify and analyze numeracy skills required by beginning registered nurses to facilitate development of numeracy skills by nursing students. A convenience sample of metropolitan and rural health care facilities in New South Wales (NSW) was selected. Within each facility an area where nursing graduates customarily work was selected. Numeracy input required to complete patientsʹ charts was identified. Additional counting, measuring or computation the nurses performed was also identified. Except for paediatric areas, the frequency with which a nurse has to perform other than a simple calculation in order to administer a medication, or calculate a per minute drip rate is low. However, the necessity to calculate drug doses does exist. Creative ideas are needed to enable nurses to do this accurately. Three general approaches are suggested. A number of recommendations are presented.