Nurses' Perceptions from Medication Errors in Teaching Hospitals, Urmia University of Medical Sciences.

Abstract

Abstract: Introduction: One of nurses' important duties is giving on time drugs to the patients which needs special education and skills. According to the studies the rate of medication errors is high among nurses which ends with some undesirable events such as increasing remedial costs, increasing hospitalization period and even patients' mortality. This study is done in order to determine the nurse's perceptions from medical error. Methods: This is a descriptive study based on nurses' point of view. Study samples contains 733 nurses working in Urmia teaching hospitals. Data gathering was done through Haddon 1972 Instrument and then data was analyzed by using SPSS software. Results: According to the findings, one of the most important reason for medication errors are shortages of nursing staff. The amounts and reports of medication errors without any harms to the patients were more than leading to harms to patients. The rate of reporting medication errors were less than committing those errors. Important bands in reporting errors were "Blaming the person instead of the system" and" Nurse' worry from its consequences". Important factors in alleviating errors reporting were "anonymous report" and "clear profits in error reporting". The majority of participants were agree on "reporting medication errors at the time of happening". Conclusion: The results are revealing that the most important reason for medication errors are shortage of nursing staff and important reason for not reporting of medical errors, is a fear from reporting consequences. Positive reaction from nursing managers against medical error report and deciding a suitable plan for increasing nursing staff and trying to decrease the recent barriers, can be effective in decreasing medial errors.