Occurrence and reporting of nurses’ medication errors in a teaching hospital in Isfahan

Abstract

Introduction: Medication errors are considered as one of the most prevalent nursing errors the identification and disclosure of which are very important. The current study aimed to investigate the occurrence and reporting of medication errors in a teaching hospital in Isfahan. Methods: In this descriptive-analytical study, conducted in 2018, a questionnaire was used to collect the viewpoints of 220 nurses from 35 hospital wards about the frequency and types of medication errors. The questionnaire consisted of two sets of questions on demographic information and on types and reporting of medication errors. Data were analyzed using Chi-square and Mann-Whitney tests in SPSS 22. Results: The mean scores of medication errors and formal and informal reporting of errors were 66.8%, 22%, and 55.3%, respectively. The most prevalent errors were related to early or delayed doses (70%). The most formal reports belonged to the failure to observe proper drug time (8%) while the most informal report was associated with mixing two or more microcapsules of drug regardless of drug interactions (29%). There were significant relationships between medications errors and gender (P =0.014), employment status (P =0.031) and job experience. Conclusion: In order to promote the identification and reporting of medication errors, it is recommended to create blame free environments in hospitals. Moreover, educating nurses about various types of errors, encouraging them to report errors, and facilitating error reporting can all help planning and reduce errors.