7 Essential Medication Aide Interview Questions to Ask

A certified medication aide (CMA) can be a valuable addition to your healthcare team. Not only are these professionals specially trained to facilitate medication administration, but they also help alleviate the workload of your nursing staff. Asking the right medication aide interview questions will help you hire the person who is best suited for this role. Also, be sure to check out current medication aide job postings to get a better sense of how other facilities are appealing to candidates.

While posting a detailed job description can help attract qualified candidates, the interview is where you can really determine how an individual would apply their qualifications in practice. To help you with this process, we put together a list of essential interview questions to ask when you’re ready to hire your next medication aide.

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Medication Aide Interview Questions

Medication aides need to be highly detail-oriented and compassionate toward patients who they’ll be interacting with on a regular basis. With this in mind, we’ve provided seven interview questions, with insights into what candidates’ answers reveal, that will help you assess these important qualities. 

1. Why do you want to be a medication aide?

This question is a great opener because it explores the motivations of a candidate. You can get an introductory sense of their career intentions and assess how well they align with the needs of the role. As medication aides typically work in long-term care settings, you can also gauge their interest in working with your specific patient or resident population.

2. What qualities do you think a good medication aide should have?

This is a good precursor to other medication aide interview questions, because it allows you to get a sense of what qualities a candidate may bring to the role if hired. Medication aides must be adept at following directions, communicating, and delivering patient-centered care. You can listen for answers that support these skills, also getting a read on how well the candidate understands the key responsibilities of the role.

3. What steps would you take to monitor a patient after they take their medications?

A medication aide will be responsible for not only administering medications, but also reporting to their supervising nurses if a patient has any adverse reactions. This question will allow you to gauge how attentive a candidate is to every step of their care process — even after their primary tasks are completed. Additionally, you can get a sense of a candidate’s willingness to carry out other patient-related care tasks and their approach to communication with members of the healthcare team.

4. What are some strategies you use to prevent medication errors?

To become a medication aide, CNA experience and other certification training is typically required. Because of this, a candidate should already have a foundational understanding of proper medication handling. This question will allow you to gauge their knowledge of employing basic safeguards against medication errors.

In particular, you can assess how a candidate makes considerations within the context of the five rights of medication administration (i.e., right patient, right drug, right time, right dose, and right route). The comprehensiveness of their answer can really show how detail-oriented they are when performing one of the most important aspects of the job.

5. How would you handle a situation where a patient is reluctant or scared to take their medications?

Medication administration doesn’t always go smoothly, and there are many reasons why a patient may refuse or feel reluctant to take their medications. This question allows you to assess a candidate’s response to common situations and their ability to problem-solve. Will the candidate be able to showcase empathy and employ strong communication skills, even when things don’t go as planned? These are all important traits to look out for.

6. Tell me about a time when you had to work through a conflict with another coworker in a healthcare setting. How did you handle it?

Medication aides work directly under other nursing professionals, so it’s important that they’re able to function well within a team setting. This question allows you to assess a candidate’s soft skills when handling tougher interpersonal situations and gauge their overall sense of professionalism.

7. What infection control precautions would you take before administering medications?

There are many modes of medication administration that could lead to preventable infection if proper precautions aren’t taken. Infection control is an important part of a medication aide’s training, so a candidate should be able to showcase knowledge in this area. Additionally, the way a candidate answers this question can help you get a sense of their commitment to upholding the best care and safety standards.

Get Access to Top Healthcare Professionals Today

Preparing medication aide interview questions is one of many steps needed to hire the most qualified health professionals for your team. If you’re overwhelmed by the hiring process, we can also give you access to more than 1 million healthcare professionals looking for work. IntelyCare’s industry-leading job board can help you quickly find the right professionals for your facility.