Background: Medication Administration

Schools and Giving Students Medicine

Administering medicine to children and adolescents who are at schools is an inescapable reality for contemporary educators. The increase in the number of students who need to take medicine during the course of a school day has forced school systems (and some state legislatures) to enact and implement regulations and medication administration policies to address the matter.

One professional research study reported that during a typical school day, 5.6 percent of children receive medication in school. The most reported medications administered within school settings were (in descending order) ADHD medications (for Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorders); non-prescription drugs; asthma medications; analgesics, and anti-seizure medications. Also common were antibiotics and vitamins.

Seriously ill and/or heavily medicated students are rarely allowed to attend classes, but for children who are only marginally ill or disabled, the issue pits educational systems against society at large. Schools must consider safeguarding other children and staff from contagious disease, the prevention of disruption in the classroom by students exhibiting symptoms of illness, the control of cross-medicating (the sharing or selling of medication between classmates); and the potential for self-medication abuse while on school premises.

The social realities of the increasing number of two working parents and single working parent households, coupled with employment policies that do not allow for "sick day" benefits to attend to children's illnesses, often results in sick students being sent to school, with or without medication to take.

Seventy-five percent of reporting nurses in a study delegated medication administration to unlicensed assistive personnel (UAPs), with secretaries (66 percent) being the most common. Errors in administering medications were reported by nearly 50 percent of the school nurses, the most common error being missed doses (79 percent). Errors were commonly reported to local school and/or state authorities.

Faced with the growing problem of exposure to liability in conjunction with the administration of medicine (and in many circumstances, the administration of controlled substances), schools have mobilized over the years and demanded both medication administration guidance and protection from liability by state legislatures. Not all states have addressed the issue at the state level, and people needing information are best advised to start with their local school districts.