Understanding the meaning of medication administration to undergraduate nursing students. / Compreendendo o significado da administração de medicamentos para os estudantes de graduação em enfermagem

AUTOR(ES)
DATA DE PUBLICAÇÃO

2002

RESUMO

Nurses have the ethical, legal and professional responsibility to promote safe care in medication administration. Learning about medication administration is centered on the knowledge that nurses develop during their academic education and professional experience. This work aimed at understanding the meaning of medication administration to nursing students during their first experiences. Due to the nature of the problem addressed, a qualitative approach was used according to the Grounded Theory, in the light of Symbolic Interactionism. Non-participant observation and semi-structured interviews were used as strategies for data collection from 13 subjects who were students at a public college in São Paulo state. Data were collected, organized and analyzed through the strategy of constant comparative analysis. The results showed that, during the process of medication administration, the nursing students experienced insecurity according to the following categories: not valuing the execution of basic procedures and with feelings of doubt "about being a nurse" emerging in the context of this action. The causes for the phenomenon were: experiencing situations of error and the perception that theoretical and practical knowledge was insufficient. As action strategies, the following must be cited: the importance of laboratory and practical activities for learning; as interventional conditions that would influence the performance of this action: having support from colleagues, relatives, teachers and having difficulties in the relationship with the client, and as consequences: awakening to the responsibility of the "action" of administering medication and awakening to the profession: feeling as a nurse when administering medication. Finally, the nursing students participating in the study attributed the meaning of medication administration as an activity of unlimited value and responsibility which leads them to the awakening to a future profession.

ASSUNTO(S)

nursing students pharmaceutical preparations estudantes de enfermagem preparações farmacêuticas nursing education educação em enfermagem

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