Why Math Is Important for Nursing Research Paper

Prescriptions and Medication

Commonly, nurses provide prescriptions to their patients for different diseases and the prescriptions they provide show a precise medication and dosage quantity. Nearly all medications have been assigned instructions for dosage quantities in milligrams (mg) per kilogram (kg) and nurses are required to work out the amount of medication a patient is needed to be assigned based on their kind of illness, the degree of the illness, weight, age, and other measurements.

If the weight of the patient has been provided only in pounds, nurses are required to convert that measurement to kilograms and later evaluate the quantity of milligrams for the prescription (Koohestani, 2010). The above also is applicable for other factors such as age. Big variations between mg/lbs and mg/kg are there and all practitioners need to know how to covert correctly weight dimensions. Nurses should also find out the period in which the prescription will last.

For instance, if a patient is prescribed to take, say one pill, two times a day, therefore, one month of pills would be around 60 pills. However, most patients want two to three months prescriptions for assurance and reliability functions and nurses should evaluate the number of pills that they should be assigned. Nurses can perform these calculations mentally with speed and accuracy to avoid any errors that may lead to severe costs to patients.

Nurses should also reflect on the duration the medicine provided to the patient will remain in the body. This helps to evaluate how often the patient is required to take medication to keep an adequate quantity of the medicine in the body (Wilfong, Szolis, and Haus, 2007, p. 69). For instance, a patient is prescribed to take a pill in the morning that has 60mg of a certain medicine.

During the morning of the next day, the body has used up 50% of the medication and this signifies that 30mg have been used up and just 30mg stay in the patient’s body. The patient goes on to take 60mg pill every morning and this signifies that on the morning of day two, patient’s body has the 30 mg that remained, in addition to another 60mg that the patient will take in the morning of day two, which sum up to be 90mg (Boye, 2008, p. 41).

As this condition goes on, the nurses should establish how frequent a patient should take the medication and determine the duration as well. This helps to maintain sufficient medicine in the body of the patient to function successfully, but without providing an overdose to the patient.

The quantity of medicine in the patient’s body after taking medication reduces by a particular fraction in a specific period, possibly 10% every 60 minutes, for instance. This reduction in percentage may be provided as a rational figure, 1/10 and this invariable rational reduction produces a geometric series. Therefore, if a patient is provided with a pill that contains 100mg of a particular medicine, the reduction of medication in the patient’s body every 60 minutes can be provided as: 100, 10, 1, 1/10, 1/100, and so forth (Boye, 2008, p. 41).

From the above evaluation, it can be observed that the quantity of medication after five hours is relatively small, roughly zero. The sequence of numbers provided above is geometric since 1/10 serves as a common factor between expressions provided. This signifies that every 60 minutes, the quantity of medication reduces by 1/10 and nurses should be familiar with this concept (Boye, 2008, p. 41). Nurses can apply this concept to make decision quickly on how frequent a patient is required to take assigned medication without getting overdose.

Ratios and Proportions

Nurses as well apply proportions and ratios while prescribing and administering medication and are required to understand how much medicine a person requires based on the patient weight. Nurses should understand the doctor’s demands and the orders may be provided as 50mcg/kg/min.

If the weight of the patient is 50kg, then the nurse must evaluate the milligrams that the patient should be given in one hour. To evaluate the quantity, nurses should convert micrograms (mcg) to milligrams (mg) and if 1mcg is equivalent to 0.001mg, it is possible to get the amount (in mg) of 50mcg through establishing a proportion to provide accurate amount.

• 1/0.001=50/X

After cross-multiplication and division, we find that 50mcg = 0.05mg and if the weight of the patient is 50kg, then the patient is given 0.05(50) = 2.5 mg per minute. Since there are 60 minutes in one hour, the patient must be given 2.5(60) = 150mg. Nurses and other medical practitioners have special ‘shortcuts’ that they apply to perform this math correctly and professionally in a minimal period of time.

Numbers provide nurses and other health care