Understanding medicines: conceptual analysis of nurses' needs for knowledge and understanding of pharmacology (Part I).

The advent of nurse prescribing in the United Kingdom (UK), albeit from a very limited formulary at first, provides a timely prompt for careful reflection on the extents and depths of understanding of medicines required by nurses for a variety of different purposes. This paper, which is the first of a two-part work, presents a conceptual analysis of what is required for patient care and support, pro re nata (as required) administration of medicines, protocol-directed administration of medicines (dependent prescribing), independent prescribing from the current Nurse Prescribers' Formulary or independent prescribing from extended formularies or the entire British National Formulary. It includes review, with common examples, of presentational issues distinguishing between approved, generic names of medicines and trade or brand names, and some discussion of combination medicines; and of recent research that has demonstrated that patient care was improved when the bioscience knowledge of nurses increased.