The Lived Experiences of Undergraduate Nursing Students Learning Drug Dosage Calculation

Abstract

Background: Competence in dosage calculation represents a challenge that seems to be almost insurmountable for nurses as well as nursing students. The lived experiences of nursing students in the context of learning medication dosage calculation have not been explored for description and interpretation. Aim of The Study: The purpose of this study was to gain more insight about undergraduate nursing students’ lived experiences in learning medication dosage calculation. Methods: A purposive sample was selected to investigate the following question: What are they lived experiences of undergraduate nursing students studying medication dosage calculation? Data were collected through face-to-face semi-structured interviews, which the researcher transcribed verbatim, and the participants reviewed for validation. The combined interpretive and descriptive method of van Manen guided the characteristics of the thematic data analysis conducted to determine the findings. Results: The related themes of signifying, repeating, analyzing, verifying, maintaining consistency are tied to the overarching theme of assuring safety, which emerged as the essence of the participants’ lived world of learning drug dosage calculation. Conclusions: This study contributed, to some extent, to filling the empirical gap identified in the literature review. These participants gave rich, in-depth accounts of how they embodied drug dosage calculation to attain competence that they need to administer correct dosage of medications to their patients.