Abstract

The injection of drugs in ampoules, which is one of the methods of drug administration, is one of the most frequently used treatment methods by nurses. The frequency of use of this method may be higher depending on the type and duration of the disease. In our research, the specialist nurse broke the same type of medicine ampoule, paying attention to the same speed and time, using the recommended appropriate breaking method and the ampoule breaker. Microscopic methods were then used to examine the presence and shape of the glass remaining in the ampoule. The drug content was examined using a measuring slide and a microscope. It was observed that the use of the ampoule breaker resulted in the formation of more, but smaller, pinewood particles in the medicine, whereas manual crushing resulted in the formation of a small number of larger mm sized pieces. It was observed that there was an average of 6 differently shaped glass pieces of 0.034 mm in 10 ml of the medicine used in this study when the ampoule breaker was used. It was also observed that the ampoule broken by the nurse contained an average of 4 pieces of glass 0.2075 mm in size. The qualitative and quantitative detection of glass fragments using the method applied in this study is scientifically valuable and makes a valuable contribution to the literature in terms of the health of both drug users and practitioners.