Question

I need to find an easy peer-reviewed article related to pharmacology and discuss the article and how it can or cannot impact your nursing practice.

preferabley a free text article but any help would be appreciated

Answer 1

Pharmacology is study of drugs, their dosage, effect, adverse effects and interactions.

Nurse play important role in administering medication to patient. Hence it becomes important that nurse should have integral knowledge of pharmacology and it aspects.

As any error in administration can turn fatal to patient and adverse effects can happen.

As a nurse the pharmacological aspects she should know are

1- right drug to administer according to prescription, and its expiry date and label should be checked

2- right dosage- amount to drug to administer should be keenly calculated as high dose can be fatal and low dose can't produce desired effect.

3- drug route- route by which drug should be administered is of importance for its effect , route are oral , parenteral (subcutaneous, intravenous, intramuscular, intraarticular), topical . Some drug are effective only when given by a specific route so knowledge of route of administration is important for nurse

4 - interaction- some drug interact with other drug and inhibit their effect or become toxic and thus harm the patient so knowledge of drug interactions help nurse to identify the drug that shouldn't be given simultaneously.

5-knowledge of half life of drug enables nurse to maintain constant concentration of drug in patient body. Drug with low half life are to be administered at frequent intervals whereas drugs with long half life are mostly given once daily.

6- some drugs are contraindicated in some condition so nurse should have knowledge of contraindications otherwise underlying disease can be precipitated . For example drugs like aspirin, ibuprofen, phenylephrine are contraindicated in pregancy.

7- pharmacology helps the nurse to know the drug dosage according to different age groups as child are unable to handle more dosage form.

8- it anables nurse to given emergency medicine in a casualty case to treat symptoms quickly and prevent further damage.

9- dose calculation is most important for a nurse. Calculating the amount according to strenght of drug, weight of patient and underlying condition dose is to be calculated.

Thus pharmacology is the basics of nursing. It helps nurse to carry out various functions.