Medication safety during the COVID-19 pandemic in primary care nurses

Objective: To know the perception of nurses about the factors that influence the safe administration of medications during the COVID-19 period, in the work context in a primary care health department of the Spanish national health system. Design: This is a qualitative phenomenological study. Site: Carried out in the Department of Health 21 (Alicante, Spain) between the months of September 2021 and November 2021. Participants: Fifteen nurses chosen by intentional sampling. Methods: A semi-structured interview lasting between 30 and 60 min was used, recorded and transcribed verbatim by the research team. A main category called "know" is established, which encompasses all the reflections about the nurse's performance during the medication administration process. Results: The participants expressed concern about the performance of medication administration procedures, which made it possible to perceive safety as the greatest concern in the study unit. From this main category, the following subcategories are developed: work overload, insufficient training, distractions and communication and information failures. Conclusion: Knowing the perception of nurses about the factors that influence the safe administration of medications could facilitate the use of instruments to standardize and reduce variability in the safe administration of medications. As well as improving conditions in work environments at the community level, and not favoring social, personal and professional stigmatization due to care error. (c) 2022 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Espana, S.L.U. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).