Medication errors are the most common medical errors which, due to their high prevalence and potential risks to patients, are used as indicators for patients’ safety measures in hospitals.
Materials and Methods:
This cross-sectional study was conducted on 97 nurses working in Taleghani and Valiasr hospitals in Abadan and Khorramshahr cities. Nurses were selected by census method and a questionnaire was used to ask their opinions about key factors affecting medication errors. Response categories including none, low, average, and high were scored 0 to 30 in order to determine the importance of each factor. The data were analyzed using SPSS 17.0.
Results:
Based on the findings of this study, factors such as work-related fatigue (63.9%), lack of sufficient time and opportunity (61.9%), shortage of nurses compared to the patients in ward (58.1%), nurses' lack of drug-related knowledge (48.9%), increasing workload (45.4%) and illegible physicians’ prescriptions in patients’ records (40.2%) were reported as the most important factors in the incidence of medication errors. Also, factors such as morning shift (49.5%), putting pharmaceutical drugs on pharmacy shelves (42.3%) and medication room (41.2%) were reported as the least important factors in in medication errors.
Conclusion:
According to the results it is recommended to employ effective management, motivate nurses, and also upgrade their scientific and clinical skills in performing pharmaceutical prescriptions in order to prevent medication errors in various sectors.