Abstract:

Background and Aim: Medication errors caused by healthcare providers can seriously threat patients’ health. The first step to present strategies for preventing such incidents is to assess the causes of errors and no reporting. The purpose of this study was to investigate the causes of medication errors and lack of their reporting from the perspective of nurses working in hospital.

Materials and Methods: This study was cross-sectional and conducted in 2015, and nurses community in Shahid Beheshti hospitals were studied.  A sample of 200 nurses selected according to the formula of the sample size and survey instruments and consisted of three parts: demographic information, types of medication errors and barriers to reporting medication errors. Test-retest test was equal to 86%.

Results: The average age of nurses participating in this study was 39.8 years old and the average work experience of nurses was 9.9 years. Most barriers related to medical error reporting process in nurses lack of importance of reporting from a nurses perspective with an average 2.8 and nurse forgets to report medication errors with an average 2.6 the lowest impact. The administrative barriers for under-reporting of medication errors, the focus of nursing managers the wrong person with an average 3.3 and inappropriate reaction of nurse managers with an average 3.1 the highest and lowest, respectively.

‍Conclusion: Manager’s actions to promote safety, giving feedback in response to errors, creating an appropriate context for reporting accidents and exchange of patient information in the studied hospitals seems to be crucial.