Assessment of nursing students knowledge on the principles of rational drug use

Rational Drug Use (RDU) requires that patients receive a drug therapy with doses to meet clinical requirements and patient's individual needs, within an efficacious period of time, and in a cost-efficient manner. Nursing education plays a major role in overcoming problems related to the use of drugs. Objective: A descriptive study was designed in order to assess nursing students' level of knowledge on principles of rational drug use. Material and Method: The study was conducted with 511 students who were available and agreed to participate in the survey, out of 542 students studying in a school of nursing at university. A questionnaire was used to collect the data, with the approval of the institution and the ethics committee. The questionnaires were analyzed using SPSS 16.0 software. Findings: 79.3% of the participants were female, and 20.7% were male. 19% of the participants were freshman while 27.6% were sophomore, 28.8% were junior, and 24.7% were senior students. It was found that 65.6% of the participants had sufficient level of knowledge on Rational Drug Use while 34.4% did not. In terms of the most recently used drugs, it was observed that 72% of the participants used prescribed drugs while 28% used OTC drugs. In an examination of the distribution of Drug Use Attitudes scores of nursing students, the Drug Use Attitudes score of sophomore students was found to be 55.44 ± 8.279 while that of freshman and junior students was 51.41 ± 7.606 and 52.91 ± 7.726, respectively, which was considered statistically significant (p < 0.05). Result: In order to provide nursing students with the necessary knowledge and attitudes, certain arrangements for a range of courses were proposed. Keywords: Student nurses, nurses, rational drug use, drug use, level of knowledge.