Investigation of the capability of pharmaceutical calculation in the staff and technicians of emergency medical centers of northern Khuzestan in 2014

Today, medication errors are considered as a criterion to determine the quality of healthcare personnel’s performance. Since emergency medical technicians are the first line of treatment, they must have sufficient knowledge in the field of pharmaceutical calculations and its usage. The present study aimed to evaluate the ability of pharmaceutical calculations in the staff and technicians of emergency medical centers affiliated to Dezful University of Medical Sciences.
In this descriptive, cross-sectional study, 56 emergency personnel and technicians were randomly selected. The study data were collected using a researcher-made questionnaire including eight questions about the emergency personnel’s knowledge regarding proper calculation of the dosage of widely used drugs. Then, the data were entered into the SPSS statistical software (v. 18) and analyzed using descriptive statistics (frequency, mean, and standard deviation) and inferential statistics (correlation).
The mean age of the study participants was 31.39±3.15 years and they had averagely worked in the emergency department for 5.35±1.54 years. In addition, 89.3% of the participants had diplomas and all the participants had passed the Emergency Rescue Course (Basic). However, 67.9% of the participants were not able to answer any of the questions. According to the results, only 3.6% of the subjects had proper knowledge level.
Considering the emergency medical personnel’s lack of knowledge regarding pharmaceutical calculations, retraining courses are recommended to be planned for these individuals.