Factors Associated With Medication Administration Errors and Why Nurses Fail To Report Them

Problem Statement

As the nurse manager of *hypothetical unit*, I have identified that nurses’ failure to report errors arising during medication administration is a problem within my unit. I have reviewed the literature for evidence-based strategies to improve the rate of reporting errors that occur during medication administration and reduce the chance of these errors happening. I will review my findings and plan in this presentation.

Introduction

In a health care institution, the aim is to help a patient recover from any illness, and therefore patient receiving wrong medication is a significant concern. This prompted the author of the article, Factors associated with medication administration errors and why nurses fail to report them, to discuss factors that cause errors during medication administration and analyze why nurses choose not to report these errors when they occur. Administration of drugs is a critical process in supplementing any patient’s recovery from an illness. The article was written to outline why errors occur during medication administration and reduce these errors. Additionally, the article explains to nurses their role in the medication administration process and why it is vital in ensuring patient safety. The article discusses three research questions; are the percentages of different medication errors reported by nurses, are the reasons underlying MAEs from the nurse’s perspective, and are the most common barriers to medication error reporting by nurses. The author is concerned about patient safety in hospitals and writes the article to address factors that cause medical administration errors and the role of nurses in these factors.

Results

This research focused on nurses’ understanding of their role in medical administration, and thus nurses were the research sample. Feedback was acquired from nurses through a questionnaire. The questionnaire was tailored to answer questions on the demographic data of the sampled participants and medical administration errors. The variables measured that concerned the demographic data of participants were;

• Age
• Sex
• Education Level
• Working Unit
• Years of Experience
• Current Position

The variables measured to answer on medical administration errors were;

• Reasons why medication errors occur
• Reasons why errors are not reported
• Percentage of errors reported

The questionnaire used a six-point Linkert-type scale to measure the variables concerning the medical administration errors, except for the percentage of errors reported where the questionnaire used a 10 point scale. The sample size consisted of 500 nurses, with 367 providing feedback (Hammoudi et al., 2018). The sample was selected based on a registered nurse with a valid MOH license who has worked in the same hospital for more than six months. The data collected from the questionnaire were analyzed using SPSS software, and descriptive analysis was used to answer the research questions. These are the variables measured by the research instrument and how the results were analyzed.

The research was dependent on the demographic of the sample size and the analysis of medication administration errors made. The results of the demographic data showed that 89.9% of the sample size were women. Of the total sample size, 63.5% were aged between 35 and 25 years, 27.5% were between 45 and 35 years, 5.2% were above 45 years of age, and 3.8% were under 25 years. This stat was directly proportional to the participants’ years of experience as of the total sample size, 37.6% had between 5 and 10 years of experience, 26.7% had between 2 and 5 years of experience, and 4.6% had less than two years of experience. Most of the participants had a bachelor’s degree in nursing, represented by 75.7%, with 22.1% holding a diploma degree in nursing, and only 2.3% had a master’s or doctoral degree in nursing. This is the summary of the demographic data based on age and years of experience.

Regarding position held, 84.7% of the participants had a normal staff nurse position, 11.2% were either supervisors or charge nurses, 2.2% held a position involving nurses’ education, and 1.9% of the participants were either head nurses or nurse managers. Additionally, the demographic data showed that 73% of the nurses had worked for more than one year at the same hospital, while the remaining percentage had worked for between 6 to 12 months at the same hospital. 22.6% of the sample did not specify the working unit they were involved in, while 59.4% were involved with the general unit, and 18% were involved with closed nursing units (Hammoudi et al., 2018). This is the summary of the results involving the participants’ demographic data.

The answers to the questions asked grouped the medication administration error research results. The results were based on five subscales: medication packaging, transcription-related reasons, nurse staffing, pharmacy procedures, and doctor communication. The subscale of medication packaging focused on similarities in medicine packages, with the highest point being awarded to answers of whether there was a similarity in the package and the lowest point being awarded to answers for the similarity between names. The mean for this subscale was 4.34, with a standard deviation of 1.35. The second subscale focused on errors made during transcribing, and the highest point was awarded to questions that answered whether errors are made on the medication sheet. The lowest point was awarded to questions that answered whether there was a failure of reporting delayed schedules for medication. The mean for this subscale was 3.15, with a standard deviation of 1.51. The mean for the subscale on communication between doctors and nurses was 3.96, with a standard deviation of 1.36. The mean for the subscale of procedures in the pharmacy was 3.43, with a standard deviation of 1.45. Lastly, the mean for the number of available staff subscale was 3.4, with a standard deviation of 1.50 (Hammoudi et al., 2018). This is the summary of the medication administration error survey results.

Conclusion

It can be concluded that the factors that cause errors in medication administration are communication between doctors and nurses, available staff, packaging of medicine, transcription issues, and processes that take place in the pharmacy. The plan to use the results of these findings involves implementing a health informatics system. This will eliminate the errors that occur due to human fault. The article was influential in solving the problem as it clearly outlines how and why the factors that cause errors in medication administration areas. This can help any researcher in the future to identify any of these issues as they arise in their nursing unit. I would suggest that our leadership ensure that all our nurses are conversant with the health informatics systems and improve the awareness of the importance of patient safety.

References

Hammoudi, B. M., Ismaile, S., & Abu Yahya, O. (2018). Factors associated with medication administration errors and why nurses fail to report them. Scandinavian journal of caring sciences, 32(3), 1038-1046.