Security system in the administration of drugs in hospital pediatric services

Introduction: The administration of drugs is a daily practice that implies big ethical, social and legal responsibilities which depend in a large proportion of a security system´s implementation. Objective: To evaluate the security system in the administration of drugs in hospital pediatric services. Methods: Quantitative, descriptive and cross-sectional research carried out at the Regional Hospital Lambayeque of Peru in 2016. It was studied the sample group of nurses (84 in total) working in the pediatric hospitalization and emergencies services. It was applied to all of them an adaptation of the Self-assessment Questionnaire on the Security System in the Administration of drugs in hospitals in Spain. Absolute values and percentages were calculated to assess the level of implementation of the system. For each dimension of the questionnaire, there were found the mean values, the standard deviation, and the minimum and maximum values. Results: 40.5% of the nurses considered that the security system in drugs administration in the pediatric areas has been partially implemented. Among the 10 dimensions of the questionnaire, the highest average values corresponded to environment´s factors (31.4 ± 8.3) and to competence and profesional training (31.4 ± 8.9). The lowest averages corresponded to the education of the patient and the family (9.0 ± 3.5), and information on the medicines (13.2 ± 3.8). Conclusions: The security system in the administration of drugs in pediatric units has been implemented partially. The most critical dimensions are the information on the drugs and the family related ones which are aspects that must be considered in an improvements plan.