Acquisition and Retention of Sterile Compounding Accuracy Skills

Objective. To determine the accuracy of dose of pharmacy students’ parenteral sterile preparation skills and to measure pharmacy students’ skill retention 1.5 years later. Methods. An exercise was designed to assess each student’s accuracy in compounding a sterile preparation with the correct potency during a second and then third year course. Results. Initially, the mean (standard deviation) of 141 students’ compounded preparation dose was not significantly different than the desired dose. Additionally, 91.5% of products were within 10% of the desired dose. In the follow-up activity the next academic year, the mean dose was not significantly different than the original compounded dose. Similarly 92.9% were within 10% of the desired dose. Conclusion. Students’ overall accuracy of sterile compounding was good initially and well-retained more than a year later, with more than 90% of students being within 10% of the desired dose in both courses.