A Study On Medications Errors In Nurses

Abstract
The purposes of this study are to understand the types of medication administration errors in nurses, and to explore the risk factors related to medication administration errors, as well as to bring up strategies for medication errors reduction. This study was a cross-sectional questionnaire survey which included 46 hospitals. During two-months period data collection, 5359 valid quesstionairres were obtained.
The designed questionnaire included three independent variables: the individual background and professtionalism, work conditions, and environment factors. The dependent variable was defined as perceived medication administration errors which had ten categories: omission, unauthorized drugs, wrong dose, wrong route, wrong rate, wrong dosage form, wrong time, wrong preparation of a dose, wrong patien, wrong drug, more or less frequency.
Three most frequent occurred error types were identified: wrong time(43.78%), omission(43.01%), and wrong rate(42.31%). Risk factors related to medication administration errors are: less work experience, professionalism, lack of teamwork, lack of communication, overworkload of nurses, not following SOP of medication administration.
According to the research finding, suggestions for safe medication administration are as following:(1) To encourge the experienced nurses to help training and supervising the less experienced nurses, so medication errors could be avoided. (2) Adequate staff level is critical for medication error reduction. (3) Establish drugs inquiry information system. (4) Provide medications related education. (5) Encourage report of medication errors.
(Key words: medication errors, medication admistration errors)