Rational Drug Usage Status of Nursing Students

Aim: This study was conducted to determinenursing students’ rational use of medicines.

Method: The population of this descriptivestudy was composed of 1177 students who were studying at a faculty of nursingin Istanbul. The study sample, on the other hand, consisted of 303 students whowere selected from the population by the “stratified random sampling” method, aprobabilistic sampling method. The sample size was calculated using the Minitabsoftware. Data were collected with data collection form between February and March2016. In data analysis, percentage, median, Pearson Chi-square and Fisher’sExact test was used.

Results: It was found that the average ageof the participating nursing students was 20.25±1.71, 85.5% of the participantswere female, 98.7% were single, 66.3% graduated from natolian High School and29.4% of them were in their third year of study. lso, 11.6% of theparticipants used medicines continuously, 16.2% used medicines frequently, themost frequent reason for using medicines (69%) was pain, 93.7% read theprospectus of the medicines they used, 70.6% took their medicines on time,86.8% were careful about using their medicines before or after meals, 78.5% didnot change doses of medicines themselves, 63% stopped using medicines whensymptoms of disease were over, 62% did not always take medicines withprescription, and 97.3% used pain relievers most without a prescription. Inaddition, there were significant differences between the participants’ genderand reading the prospectus before using medicines, between having a chronicdisease and continuous and frequent use of medicines, and between alcoholconsumption and frequent use of medicines (p<0.05).

Conclusion: The nursing students in ourstudy were found to have inadequacies in some issues related to rational use ofmedicines (e.g. taking medicines with a prescription, using medicines on timeand not changing medicine doses without physician’s suggestions). In thiscontext, it is advisable to develop guidance and counseling programs for thedevelopment of rational drug use behaviors of nursing students and to includethis subject in detail in nursing undergraduate education course curricula.

Cite this article as: Karaman, ., yoğlu,T., ydoğan, M. N. ve Kuğu, E. (2019). Rational drug usage status of nursingstudents. FNJN Florence Nightingale Journal of Nursing, 27(2): 143-156.