Abstract
This paper presents the review of the requirements on authors before posting a journal article on The Online Journal of Issues in Nurses. The review encompasses the requirements on the preparation of the abstract and the qualifying manuscript. The journal often indicates the topics for which journal article submissions are required and among the things that they insist on most is the language used in the journal article, the manuscripts, and the abstract. The paper also illustrates how the manuscript should be structured for it to be accepted for publication in The Online Journal of Issues in Nurses. The illustration is titled Frequency of Drug Administration Errors in Outpatient Cases versus Intensive Care Units and it provides the details pertaining to a study on the prevalence and frequency of drug administration errors in hospitals. The research benefits the nursing fraternity and helps limit the drug administration errors.
Introduction
The journal selected for this submission is The Online Journal of Issues in Nursing (OJIN). It is a peer-reviewed journal. It majorly focuses on current or trending topics that affect the nursing practice, education, research, and a wide scope of health care issues involving the nursing fraternity. The journal’s reliability, validity, and credibility are of unquestionable standards, especially because the American Nurses Association backs the journal. From an analytical perspective, the support by the American Nurses Association means that the journal, the editors, and publishers are credible and that any resources posted on the journal can only be accepted if proven to be of high quality (The Online Journal of Issues in Nursing, 2016).
Research Steps
Frequency of Drug Administration Errors in Outpatient Cases versus Intensive Care Units
Problem Statement
Drug administration errors stand out as one of the common clinical errors in today’s healthcare setting. The issue is raising concern in the nursing fraternity. Nurses are charged with the duties of drug administration after the doctors in charge of patients provide the prescription medication. The issue of drug administration errors has been studied severally in the past. However, the majority of the studies focus on why the drug administration errors occur but not on the areas where these errors occur more frequently. Consequently, this paper endeavors to determine the most common areas where the nurses commit the drug administration errors with the objective of providing the policy makers with information on where they should focus their energies more in a bid to curb drug administration errors.
Purpose of the Project
The purpose of the project is to determine the frequency of drug administration errors in two key areas of the healthcare system. The areas include the outpatient area and the intensive care units. The two sections were selected based on the observation that they are important areas where interruptions in the drug administration process are common. Secondly, the two areas present the two ends of the risk continuum concerning drug administration errors.
Research Question
What is the frequency of drug administration errors in the outpatient section of the healthcare system and the intensive care section of the healthcare system?
Hypothesis
H0: The frequency of drug administration errors is higher in the outpatient section than in the intensive care section.
H1: The frequency of drug administration errors is not higher in the outpatient section than in the intensive care section.
Methodology
The survey employs the use of quantitative research design. Quantitative research involves the collection of quantitative data, and he uses of statistical tools in the process of data analysis. In this particular case, the quantitative data collected involved the number of reported drug administration errors in several hospitals and healthcare sectors in the selected geographical region. The number of reported drug administration involved specifically the data from the outpatient section and the intensive care section excluding other inpatient care cases. The data was collected specifically from the hospital administrators because they are the ones responsible for information on their respective institutions. The data collection period covered the one-year preceding time of this research.
The tool of data collection selected for the study was the questionnaire. The questionnaire was designed to contain only fully structured prompts and questions. It was brief enough to capture only the information of the reported drug administration errors and the estimate of the possible drug administration errors that were not reported. The rationale for including the estimate is the fact that there are instances in which the registered nurses may consider not reporting a drug administration error to avoid punishment from the healthcare institution and also where reversing the effects of the drug administration is quick and cost effective on the part of the registered nurse.
The analysis of the data involved the use of an appropriate statistical software, which in this case was SPSS. The research modeled the frequency of the drug administration errors from the outpatient section against that of the intensive care section. The presentation of the findings involved the use of frequency tables, percentages, and other descriptive statistics including the mean, variances, and standard deviation. The methods selected for the research are in line with the research objectives and will help in answering the research questions.
Lastly, the research considered the ethical considerations in research. The data collected did not include any information that could be used to link any of the data collected to a particular healthcare institution. The rationale of this is to ensure that the confidentiality and privacy interests of the institutions were protected. The respondents were informed of the reason for data collection, assured of the use to which the information provided would be used, and this regards the use of the information purely for research and educational purposes.
Results
The results indicated that the frequency of drug administration errors in the outpatient section was higher than that in the intensive care section. The prevalence of drug administration errors stands at 14% in the outpatient care while in the intensive care unite the drug administration stand at 7.5%. About 99% of drug administration errors in the intensive care unit are reported while only about 80% of the drug administration errors in the outpatient section are reported. The research further indicates that the rationale for not reporting the drug administration errors in the outpatient is the fact that the risk of adverse implications is lower than those in the ICU area. Further, the drug administration areas majorly include the dosage variation with either under or over dosage.
Conclusion
The research concluded that the nurses are more likely to commit a drug administration error when to provide outpatient care than when to provide care in the intensive care unit. The high number of patients in the outpatient section is considered to be a major reason this phenomenon was observed. It means that other than interruptions in the process of providing care, the fatigue associated with serving many patients could be another reason as to why the drug administration errors are reported in the outpatient section as compared to the intensive care units. Consequently, the research recommended further research on the relationship between a number of patients served by a registered nurse and the number of reported drug administration errors.
How the project will impact the nursing career
The project provides evidence in the areas where the nurses need to be keener when administering drugs, which is the outpatient section. Secondly, the project provides strong grounds on why there ought to be more nurses serving in the outpatient care section. The more the nurses there are in the section, the lower the chances that there will be reported drug administration errors. Further, it implies that the nursing fraternity can use evidence from studies while determining the need for more nurses in a particular section of the healthcare facility.
References
The Online Journal of Issues in Nursing. (2016). Author Submission Guidelines. Retrieved from http://www.nursingworld.org/MainMenuCategories/ANAMarketplace/ANAPeriodicals/OJIN/AuthorInformation
