Medication Compliance Protocol for Pediatric Patients With Severe Intellectual and Behavioral Disabilities

• Various reasons for pediatric medication refusal are explored.
• The use of an applied behavioral analysis framework for developing a medication compliance protocol is described.
• The components of a medication compliance protocols are outlined.

Pediatric nurses are well aware of patient medication refusal. For a variety of reasons, many pediatric patients are noncompliant with their medication regimen. Medication administration is even more difficult when the population has severe intellectual and behavioral disabilities. An inpatient unit composed of children with these diagnoses presented a unique challenge. To address this issue, the unit RNs devised a medication compliance protocol. Initial implementation resulted in a success rate of 83.3% for six patients, after 4 weeks. Despite the small sample size, the RNs experienced a positive outcome with medication administration through consistent application of a medication compliance protocol.