Using the Technology Acceptance Model to Predict Violations in the Medication Use Process

Violations present a path to medical injury that has, thus far, been largely unexplored. This paper focuses on violations of three medication administration protocols and tests the hypothesis that if current processes for completing these tasks are neither easy nor useful, or if there is dissatisfaction with the tasks, then violations will be more likely. Survey data were collected from 199 nurses in the pediatric intensive care units, hematology-oncology-transplant units, and medical-surgical units at two pediatric hospitals. The results of the logistic regressions did not support the hypothesis, though several significant predictors of violations were found. The predictors of violations, possible reasons the hypotheses were not supported, and considerations for measuring violations are discussed.