ABSTRACT
Background: Despite of prescribing and administration of drugs to the patient, handling of drugs with utmost care by proper storage and use helps the drug not to lose its potency when administered to a patient. Storage is an important aspect of the total drug control system. There is a need to increase awareness among nurse so as to avoid treatment failure. Exposure to light is a concern with numerous medications due to the potential for photodegradation or other chemical reactions that affect drug stability.Methods: This study was conducted on nursing professionals and students (BSc) students 1st year /2nd year, working in different departments of Inpatient and Outpatient in a tertiary care teaching hospital of RIMS Kadapa. The data was collected by using structured knowledge questionnaire on proper storage of drugs that should be protected from light which consists of 20 items, based on their answers score was given1-10.Results: Among 50, the highest number was occupied by staff nurses (28), followed by head nurses (12), student nurses (8) and the least was nursing officers (2). Majority of them were B.Sc. qualified (26), followed by general nursing (10). The M.Sc and diploma qualified nurses were seven and six in number respectively. Based on scoring they were classified as POOR (<5) 13, AVERAGE (5-10) 24, GOOD (>10) 13.Conclusions: In this study half of the nursing professionals have average knowledge on storage of light sensitive drugs irrespective of their experience, so there is a need to increase awareness on storage of light sensitive drugs.