Nurses Knowledge and Practice in Dealing with High Alert Medications

High-Alert Medications (HAMs) are medications that are most likely to cause significant harmto the patient, even when used as intended. The three most common causes of death are improperdose, wrong drug, and wrong route of administration. Objective: Assess nurse’s knowledge andpractice in dealing with high alert medications. Setting: The study was conducted at general medicaland surgical units at Alexandria Main University Hospital. Subjects: 167 nurses who were involved indirect patient care and responsible for administering medications. Tools: Two tools were used to elicitthe necessary data; nurse’s practice in dealing with HAMs observational check list, and nurse’sknowledge in dealing with HAMs questionnaire. Results: The mean scores and the mean percentagefor nurses’ knowledge and practice related to medications as general, insulin, opioids, sedatives andanticoagulants were utilized. It was observed that the mean score for practice related to HAMs ingeneral were (23.02±2.50) and (39.70±4.30) as the mean percentage, and level of the nurses’ practicewas satisfactory ≤75% or unsatisfactory ≥70%. Regarding the 5 main items it was observed thatpractice in general were unsatisfactory (100.0 %).Nurse’s knowledge related to insulin, opioids,sedatives and anticoagulants had a mean score of (10.47±1.57) with a mean percentage of(74.81±11.22). Conclusion: There is a gap between nurses knowledge and practice as compared tothe standard guidelines about high alert medications administration. Knowledge level for all nurseswas unsatisfactory in total and a subtotal area with a lot of wrong information’s which might lead tohazardous practice and dangerous complications. The practice total score was unsatisfactory.Recommendations: A list of high-alert medications and medication safety policies and procedures are strongly needed and emphasized.