Drug calculation skills - are we running scared?

How to undertake intravenous infusion calculations

RATIONALE AND KEY POINTS

This article provides a step-wise, practical approach to undertaking intravenous (IV) infusion calculations. It also explores the evidence base behind medication errors in relation to calculations. REFLECTIVE ACTIVITY: 'How to' articles can help to update your practice and ensure it remains evidence-based. Apply this article to your practice. Reflect on and write a short account of.

Undertaking drug calculations for intravenous medicines and infusions

Drug calculations for intravenous (IV) medicines and infusions are more complex than those for oral medicines. This article aims to assist nurses in evaluating and improving their competence in undertaking drug calculations for the IV route. Although nurses enter the professional register with an assessed level of medicines competence, nursing is a dynamic profession and competency can decrease over time, with literature demonstrating that nurses often have suboptimal drug calculation skills. This article enables nursing students to enhance their knowledge and understanding of IV drug calculations, and registered nurses to revisit this essential nursing skill. It is necessary to enhance nurses' mathematical skills and conceptual knowledge related to drug calculations to reduce the incidence of medication errors.

Undertaking drug calculations for oral medicines and suppositories

Nurses are required to demonstrate knowledge and competence in undertaking drug calculations as part of their practice. This article aims to assist nurses in identifying their competence in undertaking drug calculations for oral medications and suppositories. Although nurses enter their professional register with an assessed level of medicines competence, nursing is a dynamic profession and competency can decrease over time, with literature demonstrating that nurses often have suboptimal drug calculation skills. This article enables nursing students to continue to enhance their knowledge and understanding of drug calculations, and registered nurses to revisit this element of an essential nursing skill. It provides examples of drug calculations, alongside methods and formulas that should be used. It also discusses issues that potentially compromise safe practice, and relates drug calculations to the professional standards outlined in UK nurses' code of practice.

Striving for a good standard of maths for potential student nurses

This article explores some of the issues surrounding numerical competence for potential pre-registration children's nursing students, with examples of success and failure, at the University of Hertfordshire. With poor numerical ability causing concern in the UK, and the effect of low competence on patient safety when calculating drug dosages in healthcare, this article considers some of the literature surrounding numerical ability, confidence and anxiety, along with considering whether a 'C' grade at GCSE is a suitable marker for assessing numerical competence before starting a pre-registration nursing programme.