Patient Safety in the Process of Pharmacotherapy Carried Out by Nurses—A Polish–Slovak Prospective Observational Study

Izabela Witczak, Łukasz Rypicz, Mária Šupínová, Elena Janiczeková, Piotr Pobrotyn, Agnieszka Młynarska and Olga Fedorowicz
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Izabela Witczak: Department of Health Care Economics and Quality, Faculty of Health Sciences, Wroclaw Medical University, 50-367 Wroclaw, Poland
Łukasz Rypicz: Department of Health Care Economics and Quality, Faculty of Health Sciences, Wroclaw Medical University, 50-367 Wroclaw, Poland
Mária Šupínová: Faculty of Health, Slovak Medical University, 947-05 Bratislava, Slovakia
Elena Janiczeková: Faculty of Health, Slovak Medical University, 947-05 Bratislava, Slovakia
Piotr Pobrotyn: University Teaching Hospital, 50-556 Wroclaw, Poland
Agnieszka Młynarska: Department of Gerontology and Geriatric Nursing, Faculty of Health Sciences in Katowice, Medical University of Silesia, 40-055 Katowice, Poland
Olga Fedorowicz: Department of Clinical Pharmacology, Faculty of Pharmacy, Wroclaw Medical University, 50-556 Wroclaw, Poland

IJERPH, 2021, vol. 18, issue 19, 1-12

Abstract: Pharmacotherapy, i.e., the use of medicines for combating a disease or its symptoms, is one of the crucial elements of patient care. Nursing workloads in the pharmacotherapy process prove that nurses spend 40% of their work on the management of medications. This study was aimed at the determination and comparison of safety levels at the nurse-managed stage of the pharmacotherapy process in Poland and Slovakia by identifying the key risk factors which directly affect patient safety. The study involved a group of 1774 nurses, of whom 1412 were from Poland and 362 were from Slovakia. The original Nursing Risk in Pharmacotherapy (acronym: NURIPH) tool was used. The survey questionnaire was made available online and distributed to nurses. The Cronbach’s alpha coefficient was 0.832. Nurses from Slovakia most often, i.e., for six out of nine factors (items: one, five, six, seven, eight, and nine), assessed the risk factors as “significant risk (3)”, and Polish nurses most often, i.e., for as many as eight out of nine risk factors (items: one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, and nine), assessed the risk factors as “very significant (5)”. It has been found that the safety of the pharmacotherapy process is assessed by Polish nurses to be much lower than by Slovak nurses.

Keywords: patient safety; pharmacotherapy process; risk factor; nurse (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
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