Anaesthesiology is a specialty which is less well known and the public usually have little knowledge regarding anaesthesia and the roles of Anaesthesiologist. Many hospitals now use a single dedicated consent for anaesthesia. This study was conducted to compare the effectiveness of a single consent for anaesthesia with the combined surgical and anaesthetic consent. A total of 109 patients, scheduled for elective surgery requiring anaesthesia were interviewed with a standardised questionnaire. Patients were divided into two groups, where one group used a single anaesthetic consent while the other used a combined surgical and anaesthetic consent. A single consent for anaesthesia was found to be more effective than the current combined surgical and anaesthetic consent (p<0.05). Regarding information about anaesthesia, 89.91% respondents agreed that the Anaesthesiologist should tell them all material risks of anaesthesia, no matter how serious it is and 81.65% respondents would like to meet Anaesthesiologist every time prior to the operation. In terms of knowledge, 94.5% patients recognized that Anaesthesiologist is the one who delivers anaesthesia during surgery. However, patients had little knowledge regarding the extended roles of Anaesthesiologist. The present study confirmed that a single consent for anaesthesia was better than the current combined surgical and anaesthetic consent.

INTRODUCTIONThis study aimed to determine the rates of non-adherence to standard steps of medication administration and medication administration errors committed by registered nurses in a neonatal intensive care unit before and after intervention.

METHODSA baseline assessment of compliance with ten standard medication administration steps by neonatal intensive care unit nurses was carried out over a two-week period. Following this, a re-education programme was launched. Three months later, they were re-assessed similarly.

RESULTSThe baseline assessment showed that the nurses did not carry out at least one of the ten standard administrative steps during the administration of 188 medication doses. The most common steps omitted were having another nurse to witness drug administration (95 percent); labelling of individual medication prepared prior to administration (88 percent), checking prescription charts against patients' identification prior to administration (85 percent) and visually inspecting a patient's identification tag (71 percent) . Medication administration errors occurred in 31 percent (59/188) of doses administered, all due to imprecise timing of medication administration. There were no resultant adverse outcomes. Following implementation of remedial measures, there was a significant reduction in non-adherence of seven of the ten medication administration steps and the rate of medication administration errors (p-value is less than 0.001). However, in 94 percent of doses administered, the nurses still did not get a witness to countercheck calculations of drug dosages before administration.

CONCLUSIONNon-compliance with the standard practice of medication administration by nurses is common but can be improved by continuing re-education and monitoring, plus the implementation of a standard operating procedure.

Chi-Square Distribution ; Guideline Adherence ; Humans ; Infant, Newborn ; Inservice Training ; Intensive Care Units, Neonatal ; Medication Errors ; prevention & control ; Nurses ; Pharmaceutical Preparations ; administration & dosage ; Quality Assurance, Health Care