شقایق تقی زاده

One of the basic principles in the safety of drug therapy for patients is the correct registration and labeling of anesthetic drugs, which can lead to the reduction of drug errors, the increase of drug and patient safety, the reduction of drug consumption and the environment, and the optimization of hospital costs.

This descriptive-analytical and cross-sectional research was conducted in February 2022 in the operating rooms of Iran University of Medical Sciences hospitals. The participants included 177 Anesthesia experts working in the hospitals’ operating rooms, who were included in the study by census method. The data was collected using the checklist for evaluating anesthetic drug registration and labeling guidelines and analyzed using SPSS software and one-way ANOVA, Fisher, and Pearson correlation coefficient statistical tests. The significance level was considered P value < 0.05.

The average compliance with the guidelines for registration and labeling of anesthetic drugs in all hospitals was 3.559 out of the total score of 16. The average adherence to guidelines in 8 hospitals was significantly different from each other (P < 0.001). Hazrat Ali Asghar Hospital had the highest compliance rate, averaging 10.333 out of 16. Firouzgar and Shahid Akbarabadi hospitals were in the next rank, averaging 10.11 and 6.65, respectively. There was a negative and significant correlation between the level of compliance with the guidelines and the average work experience and age of the experts (P=0/17); However, gender did not significantly correlate with the degree of adherence to the guidelines(P=0/596).

According to the obtained results, compliance with the guidelines for registration and labeling of anesthetic drugs in most hospitals was assessed as weak and at an unfavorable level. Considering the importance of this issue in reducing medication errors and increasing patient safety, it is necessary to use empowerment and retraining courses for Anesthesia experts according to the latest guidelines.

The correct registration and labeling of anesthetic drugs in the operating room are the basic and important principles in order to maintain patient safety, reduce the wastage of drugs and their subsequent costs, and reduce environmental pollution. Therefore, the present study was conducted with the aim of designing and psychometry of evaluation checklist for the registration and labeling guidelines of anesthetic drugs in the operating room.

This descriptive-analytical research was conducted in 2022 in the Iran University of Medical Sciences. In order to design the checklist, the latest and most reliable scientific sources in the field of anesthesia were examined and the opinions of experts of the university’s Department of Anesthesia were used. To determine the validity of the checklist, face and content validity (content validity index and content validity ratio) were calculated. In order to determine the reliability of the checklist, two methods of test-retest reliability and inter-rater reliability were used. The research results were analyzed using SPSS 22 software.

An initial checklist was designed with 19 items. In the face validity check, all the items remained on the checklist with the optimal level of 1.5. In the content validity check, three items with a content validity ratio of less than 0.62 and a content validity index of less than 0.79 were removed from the checklist. The intraclass correlation coefficient was calculated as 0.992 in reliability by the test-retest method and 0.987 in the inter-rater method, which indicates the good reliability of the checklist.

The research findings show the checklist’s face and content validity and good reliability. Therefore, it can be used to evaluate the level of observance of the guidelines for registering and labeling anesthetic drugs.