The Relationship Between Self-Reported Medication Errors, Anxiety, and Insomnia Among BSN Students During Clinical Training: A Descriptive Cross-Sectional Study.

Abstract

Background: Medication errors during clinical training are a problem for patient safety and could severely impact nursing students' learning experiences. Anxiety and insomnia could negatively affect concentration, clinical judgment and decision making, which may lead to medication errors. Thus, the purpose of this study is to explore the relationship between, self-reported medication error and anxiety with insomnia in BSN students in the context of clinical training.

Methodology: A quantitative analytical cross-sectional study was conducted among 138 students of BSN who were taken from the situation using a convenience sampling technique. The data was collected using a structured self-administered questionnaire which contained demographic information, the medication error questionnaire, Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD-7) and the Insomnia Severity Index (ISI). The data were analyzed for descriptive statistic, Pearson correlation and Chi-square test at p<0.05 significance level using IBM SPSS Statistics 27.0.

Results: Of the 138 respondents, 61.6 % were female and 56.5% reported one or more medication errors occurred during clinical training. The most prevalent level of anxiety was mild with 41.3% of participants, and 51.4% had no clinically significant sleep related major depressive episode. There was no significant association between the variable of medicine error and anxiety (χ² = 1.194, p = 0.754) or sleep disturbance (insomnia) and medicine error (χ² = 1.528, p = 0.676). A positive correlation between anxiety and insomnia was found (r = 0.233, p = 0.006); higher level of anxiety was associated with higher level of insomnia in BSN students.

Conclusion: There was no significant differences between the presence of anxiety and self-reported medication errors, but significant positive correlation of anxiety with insomnia within BSN students. The study results emphasize that in order to improve safe clinical practice, medication safety education, clinical supervision, in addition to promoting students' psychological wellbeing should be enhanced.