Administration of Medications Via Nasogastric Tube: Nurses' Knowledge & Practices

The administration of medication is a complex process that implies participate three professionals: physician, pharmacist and nurse. Appropriately to administer medication through digestive tubes, they need to have the knowledge about the characteristics of different drug dosage forms available in the market, the possibility of using or not using them, and the respective correct handling technique. Critical care nurses are playing a major role in preparing, monitoring, administrating and evaluating the patient response to medication and nutritional care. Numerous issues must be considered to make sure safe and effective drug delivery in critically ill patient receiving enteral feeding. Interactions among nutrients and medications may be significant, resulting in treatment failure or adverse effect. Nurses? knowledge and practices about administration of medications via nasogastric tube may differ from hospital to another and need to be assessed and observed to find if there is a gap between their knowledge and practice and if they follow the standard guidelines to administer medication via nasogastric tube.