Differences in medication knowledge and risk of errors between graduating nursing students and working registered nurses: comparative study

Table 1 Characteristics of participants

	Students	Nurses	P-value
	(n = 243)	(n = 203)	P-value
Age in years (SD), range (n = 441)¹⁾	28.2 (7.6), 21-54	42.0 (9.3), 23-66	<0.001
Gender (men)	29 (11.9%)	16 (7.9%)	0.16
Childhood outside Norway (n = 445)¹⁾	12 (5.0%)	16 (7.9%)	0.21
Mathematics beyond 1^st year high-school/USS²⁾	105 (43.2%)	80 (39.4%)	0.42
Other education prior to nurse education	106 (43.6%)	81 (39.9%)	0.43
Part time job past 12 months (full time = 1.00)	0.23 (0.21)	0.86 (0.16)	<0.001
Frequency ³⁾ medication tasks - overall	0.6 (0.5)	1.7 (0.6)	<0.001
- Drug dose calculation tasks	0.2 (0.5)	1.4 (1.1)	<0.001
- Preparation tasks	0.3 (0.5)	1.8 (0.6)	<0.001
- Distribution tasks	0.9 (0.8)	1.8 (0.7)	<0.001
Total mean score GHQ ⁴⁾ (9 items)	0.89 (0.26)	0.90 (0.23)	0.67
- Sense of coping (0-3)	0.97 (0.27)	0.79 (0.28)	<0.001
- Sense of self esteem/well-being (0-3)	0.79 (0.35)	1.01 (0.23)	<0.001

The results are given as mean (standard deviation), or number of participants (proportion).
¹⁾Variable with missing data.
²⁾Upper secondary school.
³⁾Frequency: 0 = less than monthly, 1 = monthly, 2 = Weekly, 3 = every working day.
⁴⁾General Health Questionnaire (GHQ) score 0-3, 0 = better than usual, 1 = as usual, 2 = worse than usual, 3 = much worse than usual.