SamereFarhani Nezhad, Jeiran Frootanfar, Yaser Khanchemehr, Mohammadreza Rezaei

Abstract

Purpose:The drug is the most commonly used medicinal product in health-service provider units and the proper implementation of medicinal prescription is of the basic nursing measures calling for the use of knowledge, techniques, and skills. One of the most common medical and nursing errors is medication errors, the occurrence of which causes serious health problems for patients. The present study was conducted to evaluate the rate and type of medication errors made by nurses in ShahidMohammadi Hospital, Bandar Abbas, in 2017. Methodology:This descriptive cross-sectional study with the analytical design was conducted in 2017 on 257 nurses from ShahidMohammadi Hospital of Bandar Abbas selected by sampling method. The inclusion criteria were having a bachelor's degree and one year of work history and the exclusion criteria were the nurses with management posts, head nurses, and those unwilling to participate in the study. Data collection tool was a researcher-made checklist with their validity and reliability evaluated. Data were analyzed in SPSS 18 and descriptive and analytic tests. Results:The results indicated that out of 257 nurses participating in the study, 93.8% were females, 89.5% had master's degree, and the mean age of nurses was 31.92 ± 4.78 years and the mean work history was 7.52 ± 4.6 years. There was a significant relationship between medication errors with education and participation in drug administration classes and employment in other hospitals based on an independent t-test (P=0.001). The most commonly reported medication errors were the wrong patients (34.65%), drug dosage (20%), drug type (19.98%), drug registration (19.5%) and time (13%), and the least errors were related to the administration method (3.3%). Conclusion:based on the results, it is necessary that nursing managers pay reasonable attention to the ratio of patients with staff in wards and reduction of the workload and working hours of nurses as these factors can increase the probability of developing medication errors. According to the nurses' medication errors, re-acquiring classes to be familiarized with the principles of drug administration and encourage nurses to report medication errors and the positive response of managers in this regard.