Measuring health professionals’ perceptions of communication contributing to medication incidents in hospitals - scale development and primary results of weekly perceived communication challenges

BMC Nursing

Research

Santtu Mikkonen¹  Marja Härkänen²  Tiina Syyrilä²  Katri Vehviläinen-Julkunen³ 

[1]Department of Environmental and Biological Sciences, University of Eastern Finland (UEF), Kuopio, Finland

[2]Department of Technical Physics, Faculty of Science, Forestry and Technology, University of Eastern Finland (UEF), Kuopio, Finland

[3]Department of Nursing Science, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Eastern Finland (UEF), PO Box 1627, 70211, Kuopio, Finland

[4]Department of Nursing Science, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Eastern Finland (UEF), PO Box 1627, 70211, Kuopio, Finland

[5]Kuopio University Hospital (KUH), Kuopio, Finland

关键词: Medication;    Incident;    Communication;    Hospitals;    Scale;    Medication safety;   

DOI  :  10.1186/s12912-023-01455-x

 received in 2023-03-13, accepted in 2023-08-17,  发布年份 2023

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundCommunication challenges are one of the main contributors for medication incidents in hospitals, but health professionals’ perceptions about variety of the contributing communication factors and the factors’ occurrence frequencies are studied little. This cross-sectional descriptive study aimed to (1) operationalize a literature-based framework into a scale for measuring health professionals’ perceptions of communication factors, which contribute to medication incidents either directly or indirectly in hospitals, (2) to measure the construct validity and internal consistency of the scale and (3) to describe the primary results of the measured weekly perceived communication challenges.MethodsThe structured online questionnaire with 82 communication related items was developed based on a framework in literature. A content validity index of expert panelists’ answers was used for item reduction. Data was collected between November 1st, 2019, and January 31st, 2020, by convenience sampling. The study sample (n = 303) included multiple health professional groups in diverse specialties, unit types and organizational levels in two specialized university hospital districts in Finland. Exploratory factor analysis with Maximum Likelihood method and Oblique rotation produced a six factors scale consisting of 57 items and having acceptable construct validity and internal consistency.ResultsThe six communication factors contributing to medication incidents concerned (1) medication prescriptions, (2) guidelines and reporting, (3) patient and family, (4) guideline implementation,5) competencies and responsibilities, and 6) attitude and atmosphere. The most frequently perceived communication challenges belonged to the Medication prescription related factor. Detailed item frequencies suggested that the most usual weekly challenges were: (1) lack or unclarity of communication about medication prescriptions, (2) missing the prescriptions which were written outside of the regular physician-ward-rounds and (3) digital software restricting information transfer.ConclusionsThe scale can be used for determining the most frequent detailed communication challenges. Confirmatory factor analysis of the scale is needed with a new sample for the scale validation. The weekly perceived communication challenges suggest that interventions are needed to standardize prescribing documentation and to strengthen communication about prescriptions given outside of regular ward-rounds.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© BioMed Central Ltd., part of Springer Nature 2023

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