KNOWLEDGE LEVELS OF NURSING STUDENTS REGARDING RATIONAL USE OF DRUGS

Goal:This descriptive study was aimed to evaluate the knowledge levels of the nursing studentsregarding rational drug use.Methods:The universe of the study is composed of nursing students of Yozgat Bozok University Facultyof Health Sciences. 257 nursing students who volunteered to participate in the study and whocould be reached online between 01.11.2020-12.11.2020 were included in the study. Ethicalapproval was obtained from the Yozgat Bozok University ethics commission, and verbal andwritten consent was obtained from the students before starting the study. The data werecollected using the sociodemographic information form and the Rational Drug Use Scale. TheShapiro-Wilk test was used to check whether the numerical data were suitable for normaldistribution. Descriptive statistics such as number, percentage, mean, standard deviation andMan Whitney U test, Kruskal Wallis analysis were used in the analysis of the data.Findings:It was determined that 79.4% of the students were women, 34.6% were in the second grade,and the average age was 20.37 ± 1.81. We found that 79.0% of the students chose the professionwillingly, 96.1% did not have any chronic diseases and 97.7% did not have a regular medicationand 79.0% of the students had not received training on rational drug use before. The mean scoreof rational drug use scale of the students was found to be 33.43 ± 2.93, and 77.4% of them hadinsufficient knowledge (scale score ≤ 34). Statistically significant difference was not foundbetween the mean score of the scale and the descriptive characteristics such as age, gender,grade level, presence of chronic disease, and prior rational drug use training (p> 0.05).Results:As a result, it was found that more than half of the nursing students had insufficient knowledgeregarding rational drug use. Nursing students should be educated regarding rational drug usethroughout their undergraduate education, the effectiveness of the education should beevaluated and support should be provided to develop attitudes and behaviors.Keywords : Knowledge level, nursing, rational medicine, student