A realist evaluation of a safe medication administration education programme

Browne, Freda, Hannigan, Ben ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2512-6721 and Harden, Jane ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8158-6450 2021. A realist evaluation of a safe medication administration education programme. Nurse Education Today 97 , 104685. 10.1016/j.nedt.2020.104685

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Abstract

Background Continuing professional education (CPE) for nurses is deemed an essential component to develop, maintain and update professional skills. However, there is little empirical evidence of its effectiveness or factors which may influence its application into practice. Objective This paper explores a continuing professional education programme on the safe administration of medication and how new knowledge and skills are transferred into clinical practice. Design Realist evaluation provided the framework for this study. Realist evaluation stresses the need to evaluate programmes within “context,” and to ask what “mechanisms” are acting to produce which “outcomes.” This realist evaluation had four distinct stages. Firstly, theories were built as conjectured CMO configurations (Stage 1 and 2), then these cCMO were tested (Stage 3) and they were then refined (Stage 4). Methods Data was collected through document analysis and interviews (9) to build and refine CMOs. The conjectured CMOs were tested by clinical observation, interview (7), analysis of further documents and analysis of data from reported critical incidents and nursing care metric measurements. Results This study has shown the significant role of the ward manager in the application of new learning from the education programme to practice. Local leadership was found to enable a patient safety culture and the adoption of a quality improvement approach. The multi-disciplinary team at both organisation and local level was also found to be a significant context for the application of the education programme into practice. Reasoning skills and receptivity to change were identified to be key mechanisms which were enabled within the described contexts.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Schools:	Healthcare Sciences
Publisher:	Elsevier
ISSN:	0260-6917
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	18 December 2020
Date of Acceptance:	21 November 2020
Last Modified:	13 Dec 2024 13:41
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/137123

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