Medication Safety Flashcards
7 cards from real PSA practice questions. Tap to flip, then mark Knew It or Still Learning — missed cards come back until you master them.
Read the first 7 Medication Safety flashcards as text
Which medication formulation must NOT be crushed before administration via a nasogastric tube?
Answer: Enteric-coated aspirin 75 mg tablet
Crushing enteric-coated aspirin destroys the protective coating designed to prevent gastric irritation, releasing the drug in the stomach and increasing the risk of ulceration.
Which pair represents a classic and clinically dangerous look-alike/sound-alike (LASA) medication risk?
Answer: Metformin and methotrexate
Metformin (antidiabetic) and methotrexate (immunosuppressant/chemotherapy) are a well-documented LASA pair; errors have caused fatal methotrexate toxicity in diabetic patients.
Which prescription abbreviation is considered most dangerous and should always be written in full to prevent a medication error?
Answer: 'U' for units, which can be misread as a zero causing a tenfold overdose
Writing 'U' for units is dangerous because it can be misread as '0', turning '10U of insulin' into '100 units' — a potentially fatal tenfold overdose.
A child weighs 25 kg. The prescribed dose of trimethoprim is 4 mg/kg twice daily. What is the correct dose for each administration?
Answer: 100 mg
4 mg/kg × 25 kg = 100 mg per dose; confirming weight-based calculations carefully prevents under- or overdosing in pediatric patients.
A patient with eGFR of 20 mL/min/1.73m² requires anticoagulation. Which drug does NOT require renal dose adjustment?
Answer: Warfarin (vitamin K antagonist)
Warfarin is hepatically metabolized via CYP2C9 and does not require renal dose adjustment, unlike DOACs and LMWH which undergo significant renal clearance.
A patient reports a documented penicillin allergy with a previous anaphylactic reaction. Which antibiotic should be prescribed with the most caution?
Answer: Cefalexin (first-generation cephalosporin)
Cephalosporins, especially first-generation ones, share a beta-lactam ring structure with penicillins and carry a small but clinically relevant cross-reactivity risk in patients with true penicillin allergy.
A nurse receives a verbal telephone order for a medication. Which practice best reduces the risk of a prescribing or transcription error?
Answer: Reading the full order back to the prescriber and obtaining verbal confirmation
The read-back technique, where the recipient repeats the complete order to the prescriber for confirmation, is the standard safety protocol for verbal and telephone medication orders.