Sample group:
In spite of the extended recruitment phase, out of the 480 care facilities selected at random (30 care facilities per federal state) a total of 107 outpatient services could be included in the study. 656 nursing staff from these outpatient services filled in and returned the questionnaires. The median per participating care facility was at n = 5 staff (the first quartile at n = 3, the third quartile at n = 7). Of the 656 staff, 485 were qualified nurses. Only this group of persons was considered for the 1st outcome ‘error committed’. Of those, over half were full-time staff, (50.4%) and 47.8% were employed part-time. Nine employees (1.8%) did not specify their contract terms. The majority of the care workers (81.1%; n = 393) were employed in the federal states of former West Germany. Over half of the nursing staff (55.1%; n = 267) rarely practised the dual control principle when administering drugs, however almost 30% (n = 142) made regular use of the practice. 473 specified their work experience in years and 447 qualified care staff stated the number of patients per shift. The average here was 18.3 years’ work experience and 15.1 patients cared for per shift.
For the 2nd outcome ‘error reported’ the particulars of all care workers were gathered (fully qualified = qualified nursing staff, not fully qualified = auxiliary nurses, trainees and other employees). The average number of years of work experience was (n = 624) 16.4 years, the average number of patients in care per shift (n = 598) was 14.3 patients. 339 care workers were employed full time and 302 care workers were employed part time. The majority of the nursing staff had attended drug administration training (n = 431) less than two years ago. 181 of them had attended drug administration training over two years ago or had not attended any training. 44 staff gave no information regarding the training. (Supplement 1). The dual control principle was used rarely by 294 nursing staff and frequently by 171 nursing staff. 189 employees provided no information on this. Further information describing the sample groups can be found in Supplement 1.
Descriptive Analysis
Regarding errors committed, data was provided by 413 nursing staff. Of these, 48.9% reported having made an error themselves.
Table 1 Representation of correlations between medication administration and the variables investigated (descriptive bivariate analysis)
Table 1
Variable (dependent) investigated: Personally made an error when administering medication (N = 485, no: n = 211, yes: n = 202, not specified: n = 72) |
Variables (independent) investigated (by category) | | no | | yes | | total | Chi2 |
| | n | % | n | % | | p |
How long ago was your last medication training? | No training or over 2 years ago | 46 | 38.0% | 75 | 62.0% | 121 | 0.001 |
Less than 2 years ago | 157 | 55.7% | 125 | 44.3% | 282 | |
Type of work contract? | Employed part time | 91 | 49.5% | 93 | 50.5% | 184 | 0,353 |
Employed full time | 119 | 54.1% | 101 | 45.9% | 220 | |
Do you work in the new (East) or old (West) German federal states? | West | 163 | 48.7% | 172 | 51.3% | 335 | 0,040 |
East | 48 | 61.5% | 30 | 38.5% | 78 | |
Dual control principle used | rarely | 85 | 36.6% | 147 | 63.4% | 232 | < 0.001 |
| frequently | 79 | 66.9% | 39 | 33.1% | 118 | |
Table 1
Variable (dependent) investigated: Personally made an error when administering medication (N = 485, no: n = 211, yes: n = 202 not specified: n = 72) |
Variables (independent) investigated Variables (metric) | no | yes | t-Test |
| n | mw | sd | n | mw | sd | p |
Years of work experience | 207 | 18.1 | 10.3 | 200 | 18.3 | 10.5 | 0.863 |
No. of patients per shift | 196 | 15.0 | 9.3 | 185 | 15.7 | 6.7 | 0.436 |
In Table 1, statistically significant differences can be seen in terms of drug administration training conducted within the past two years as opposed to training conducted over two years ago or not at all: of the 121 participants whose drug administration training took place over two years ago or who had received no drug administration training, 62% said that they had committed an error in administering drugs. In comparison, 44.2% of the 282 caregivers who had participated in drug administration training in the previous two years said that they had made an error in administering drugs. As regards the use of the dual control principle, significant differences could also be seen. When nursing staff made rare use of the dual control principle when administering medication, approximately 63.4% (n = 147) of 232 nursing staff made an error. However, if the dual control principle was frequently used, (n = 118), 66.9% of the nursing staff made no error. Concerning the other independent variables, hardly any statistically significant differences could be seen.
Of all the nursing staff questioned, 30.2% said that they had reported an error. 127 people gave no information on this point.
Table 2 Representation of correlations between the variable ‘Error reported in administering medication’ and the variables investigated (descriptive bivariate analysis)
Table 2
Variable (dependent) investigated: error reported (N = 656, no: n = 369, yes: n = 160, not specified: n = 127 ) |
Variables (independent) investigated (by category) | | no | | yes | | total | Chi2-test |
| | n | % | n | % | | p |
How long ago was your last medication training? | No training or over 2 years ago | 110 | 70.1% | 47 | 29.9% | 157 | 0.779 |
Less than 2 years ago | 245 | 68.8% | 111 | 31.2% | 356 |
Type of work contract? | Employed part time | 187 | 74.8% | 63 | 25.2% | 250 | 0.016 |
Employed full time | 173 | 65.0% | 93 | 35.0% | 266 |
Do you work in the new (East) or old (West) German federal states? | West | 289 | 68.5% | 133 | 31.5% | 422 | 0.146 |
East | 81 | 75.7% | 26 | 24.3% | 107 |
Dual control principle used | rarely | 155 | 59.8 | 104 | 40.2% | 259 | 0.002 |
| frequently | 115 | 74.7% | 39 | 25.3% | 154 |
Table 2
Variable (dependent) investigated: error reported (N = 656, no: n = 369, yes: n = 160, not specified: n = 127) |
Variables (independent) investigated Variables (metric) | no | yes | t-Test (student) |
| n | mw | sd | n | mw | sd | p |
Years of work experience | 35 | 16.53 | 10.20 | 15 | 16.60 | 10.08 | 0.940 |
No. of patients per shift | 33 | 14.41 | 9.24 | 14 | 15.78 | 5.76 | 0.048 |
In Table 2, statistically significant differences can be seen concerning the use of the dual control principle as well as the number of patients in care per shift. Of the nursing staff (n = 259) who said they rarely used the dual control principle (n = 259), 40.2% (n = 104) reported an error in the administration of medication. However, with nursing staff who often used the dual control principle (n = 154), a comparatively low share of them (25.3%; n = 39) respectively reported an error. Regarding the number of patients cared for per shift, it was evident that a higher number of patients to be cared for per shift (average 15.78) as opposed to fewer patients per shift (average 14.14) had an influence on the occurrence of errors. Statistically significant differences could also be seen in relation to the number of hours worked by the employees. No significant differences could be seen with the other variables.
Representation of the logistic regression calculation – multivariate analysis
Multivariate analyses were calculated analogous to the descriptive specifications in Tables 3 and 4. Table 3 shows the multivariate analysis of the 1st outcome ‘error committed’ and Table 4 shows the 2nd outcome ‘error reported’.
Table 3
Representation of the correlations between the target variable ‘No error committed in administering medication’ and the variables investigated
| | | 95% confidence interval |
| odds ratio | p-value | lowest | highest |
Medication training < 2 years ago | 1.79 | 0.036 | 1.04 | 3,09 |
Frequent use of dual control principle | 3.13 | 0.000 | 1.88 | 5,20 |
Work experience (in years) | 1.01 | 0.360 | 0.99 | 1,04 |
Number of patients (per shift) | 0.98 | 0.200 | 0.94 | 1,01 |
Not full time (0)/ full time (1) | 1.44 | 0.147 | 0.88 | 2,37 |
West (0) - East (1) | 1.76 | 0.080 | 0.94 | 3,31 |
Target variable: No errors made in administering medication |
Table 4
Representation of the correlations between the target variable ‘Error reported in administering medication’ and the variables investigated
| | | 95% confidence interval |
| odds ratio | p-value | lowest | highest |
Medication training < 2 years ago | 1.27 | 0.347 | 0.76 | 2.07 |
Frequent use of dual control principle | 1.92 | 0.009 | 1.18 | 3.13 |
Work experience (in years) | 1.01 | 0.289 | 0.99 | 1.04 |
Number of patients (per shift) | 0.97 | 0.080 | 0.94 | 1.00 |
Not full time (0)/ full time (1 | 0.84 | 0.481 | 0.52 | 1.36 |
West (0) - East (1) | 1.72 | 0.085 | 0.93 | 3.16 |
Fully qualified (1) | 0.74 | 0.424 | 0.35 | 1.55 |
Target variable: Errors reported in administering medication |
Regarding the 1st outcome ‘error committed’ the results show that the odds of no errors being made are almost twice as high (odds ratio (OR) 1.79; confidence interval (CI) 1.42–3.09) if drug administration training has taken place within the last two years. Regarding the use of the dual control principle, it can be seen that the odds of committing no error are three times higher if nursing staff (OR 3.13; CI 1.88-5,20) make use of the dual control principle. Concerning the 2nd outcome ‘error reported’ the odds of an error being reported were almost twice as high (OR 1.92; CI 1.18–3.13) if the dual control principle was used frequently as opposed to a rare use of the dual control principle.