Determination of Senior Nursing Students’ Mathematical Perception Skills and Pediatric Medication Calculation Performance

Aim: Math skills in the health field areoften used to calculate drug dosage and liquid quantity, body mass and costanalysis. The aim of this research is to determine the senior nursing students’mathematical perception skills and pediatric medication calculationperformance.

Method: The population of this descriptivecross-sectional research is composed of 103 nursing students in attending astate university in Izmir, Turkey. Of the 103 nursing students, 97 who answeredall the questions comprised the study sample. All the participants tookone-month training in the pediatric clinics during the last year of theireducation. The data were collected using the “Personal Information Form and MathematicsPerception, Information and Pediatric Drug Calculator Skills Survey” developedby the researchers by reviewing the literature.

Results: The mean age of the studyparticipants was 22.24±0.89. Of them, 76.3% were female, 23.7% completed their PediatricInternship Training in the pediatric inpatient units or the Pediatric IntensiveCare Unit (PICU), 68% thought that their basic mathematics knowledge wasadequate, and %30 stated that their dosage calculation, solution preparationand drug preparation skills were insufficient. In addition, the rate of thecorrect answers they gave to the questions on percentages, fractions andconversions was low.

Conclusion: In the drug applicationprocess; not only practical skills, but also the theoretical knowledge shouldbe considered. A nurse’s responsibility does not end once he/she administersmedication. Being careful throughout the entire process is one of the nurse’slegal and ethical responsibilities. In this study, the students’ drugcalculation skills were inadequate.

Cite this article as: Ardahan-Akgül, E.,Özgüven-Öztornacı, B., Doğan, Z. and Yıldırım-Sarı, H. (2019). Determination ofsenior nursing students’ mathematical perception skills and pediatricmedication calculation performance. FNJN Florence Nightingale Journal of Nursing,27(2): 166-172.