Nurse prescribing: a global perspective

Last month, the research round-up provided you with an overview of articles looking at prescribing in atrial fibrillation. This month, we are going to look at prescribing in countries outside of the UK, to gain a more global perspective on nurse prescribing practices. The first article looks at nurses' readiness to prescribe under supervision in Saudi Arabia using a cross-sectional methodology; the second looks at enablers and barriers to nurse prescribing in Spain via a Delphi study; while the final article looks at dermatology nurse prescribing in China, again using the Delphi method to gain data.

This study, published in the Saudi Pharmaceutical Journal, aimed to explore nurses' readiness to prescribe under supervision. It further sought to identify any association between the prescribing practices and demographic differences.

This study was carried out in Saudi Arabia with a cross-sectional study design. Convenience sampling was used, and between December 2022 and March 2023 379 participants were identified as eligible for inclusion in the study. A survey method of collecting data was used with a 32-item questionnaire to be completed. The nurses recruited were specialist nurses, nurse technicians, senior and consultant nurses. Of the 309 nurses surveyed only 30 were prescribing independently, but 70% of those questioned were in pursuit of prescribing training.