An Observational Study to Evaluate the Medication Errors by Nursing Staff Working in Bushehr Medical Centers during one Year Interval (1385-1386)

Abstract

Background: Medication errors refer to inappropriate use of drugs, can lead to harmful and serious consequent. Many factors contribute to incidence of these errors. To investigate this factors a descriptive analytic study was done that assess clinical staff medication errors in Bushehr medical centers. Methods: The participants were 400 clinical staff, including nurses, midwives and nurse assistances to complete designed medication errors questionnaire. This questionnaire include 2 parts, part one was demographic data and part two, assess influencing factors of medication errors in six domain. Results: Results showed that the half of participants (49.9%) had medication errors in acquaintance and the most error in dosage (37.7%) and then type of drugs(27.7%). 73.3% of participants reported their errors and in unreported cases the most cause was fear of managers. According to participants attitude factors that interfering to medication errors were physicians factor, including illegible order in patient file (24.94%), nurses factors including, incorrect documentation (24.38%), interpersonal relationship (19.45%), inappropriate environment (15.3%), knowledge deficit and lack of experience (11.23%) and stressful events (4.66%). No statistical significant correlation between situation of job and shift work. Conclusion: Results show that medication errors are common and human factors are the most factors in these errors