Introduction: Nowadays continuing education is considered an essential part of nursing education. This study was planned to evaluate the effect of continuing education of neonatal intensive care nursing on knowledge and the practice of nurses who were working in the children’s hospitals.

Materials and Methods: A semi-experimental study was carried out including 42 nurses of the children’s hospitals affiliated to Tehran University of Medical Sciences during 18 months in 1999- 2000. The data were collected by a questionnaire and a checklist. The questionnaire included demographic information and 60 multichoices questions based on the knowledge of the neonatal intensive care nursing. The observation checklist contained 5 parts, how to establish: resuscitation operation, endotracheal suction, management of the patient under mechanical ventilation, nasogastric tube insertion and feeding by gavage. At the end of the training courses the questionnaire and the checklist were completed again individually. The result of the pre and post tests and checklist were compared in the areas of knowledge and practice. The data was analyzed by 2 and paired t Student test.

Results: Statistical analysis showed a meaningful difference in the knowledge and practice after the continuing nursing education (p<00001).               

Conclusion: This research revealed the positive effect of the continuing nursing education on the knowledge and the practice of the nurses who were working in the pediatric wards. It is important to consider the continuing nursing education program to promote the health care system.

Introduction: Caring is the essence of nursing and medication process is an important part of nursing related interventions in the health care systems. Medical and/or nursing errors can lead to severe problems for both patients and nursing system. The purpose of this study was to investigate the ethical practice in medication process among nurses working in selected hospitals related to Tehran University of Medical Sciences.          

Materials and Method: This study is a descriptive–analytic research. Samples of the study were 305 nurses employed in adult units of selected hospitals. The research data gathering tools were a checklist and a questionnaire. Questionnaire included questions about demographic data and errors in medication process. Checklist included 17 questions related to expected behaviors regarded medication process. The researcher first completed the questionnaire and then the checklist was completed on two separate occasions at least 15 days apart. The data were analyzed using descriptive and analytic statistics such as Chi square, Fisher exact test and Pearson correlation coefficients.

Results: The majority of subjects were 26-35 years old, female and single. About half of nurses (49.6%) had undesirable performance in process of medication. Ethical practice had a significant correlation with type of ward (p=0.005), the mean number of occupied beds in a week (p=0.000), number of co-workers in the shift (p=0.001), educating (p=0.037), satisfaction with place of work (p=0.0043) and technical possibilities in the ward (p=0.029).

Conclusion: According to the results, the majority of nurses had an undesirable performance in medication process. It is suggested that managers, program planners and nursing teachers pay more attention to ethical practice in medication process in order to enhance performance of nurses in this field.