Exploration of Factors Associated with Reported Medication Administration Errors in North Carolina Public School Districts.
Nakia C Best, Ann O Nichols, Bosny Pierre-Louis and 1 others
PMID 36131393WHAT IT FOUND
North Carolina school districts reported an average of 78 medication errors needing medical intervention each year.
Errors were higher where districts had more schools; direct district employment of nurses was associated with fewer errors and fewer reported corrective action plans.
Key findings
01Across all 115 districts, an average of 78 medication errors requiring medical intervention were reported each year.
02In adjusted longitudinal models, districts with more schools had a higher estimated rate of reported medication errors (p < .0001).
03Direct school-district employment of nurses was associated with lower medication error rates (p = .0269) and lower reported need for corrective action plans (p = .0269).
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for RNs
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What it does not show
The study used district-level survey data collected for school health reporting, not patient-level records, so it cannot show what happened to individual students. Medication errors and corrective action plans were not required to be reported, so counts likely under-represent actual events. Data collection changed over time, some items were missing, and some variables were removed because of missingness, single values, or collinearity. No adjustment was made for testing many hypotheses, so some significant associations may be chance. The audit frequency association did not reach statistical significance. The design is observational, so associations may reflect other district differences rather than the factors measured.
Declared interests
The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest. The work was supported by the National Association of School Nurses.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that changing school nurse employment, workload, or training methods will reduce medication errors. The study reports district-level associations, and medication errors were not required to be reported, so the counts may understate what happened.