Frequency of intravenous medication administration to hospitalised patients: secondary data-analysis of the Belgian Nursing Minimum Data Set

The purpose of this study was to investigate the frequency of intravenous medication administration with Belgian hospitalised patients. Factors, which might influence this frequency of administration, were also studied. Research questions were investigated by secondary data-analysis of the Belgian Nursing Minimum Data Set. The randomised sample consisted of 1,035,681 observations on 421,530 patients. Results of this study demonstrate that one out of three (34%) hospitalised patients received intravenous medication. Medical diagnoses, for which most intravenous medications were administered, were oncological diseases: myeloid (77.9%) and lymphoid (69.4%) leukaemia. Elderly (6.7%) and female (31.2%) patients received significantly less intravenous medication than respectively young (32.9%) (χ2=98411, DF=1, p<0.001) and male (38%) (χ2=2033, DF=1, p<0.001) patients. Patients with intravenous medication administration were labour intensive for nursing staff.