Barriers to Error Reporting and Preventive Strategies from Viewpoints of Nursing Staff in Social Security Hospitals in Kerman

Errors are unavoidable in clinical practice, but it can be minimized in terms of frequency and intensity. Reporting the errors is so important and effectively avoids future errors that may cause patients harm. This study was conducted to identify barriers of error reporting by nurses and preventive strategies in social security hospitals in Kerman, Iran.
Material & In this cross-sectional study, the instrument was questionnaire of barriers to self- reporting errors that was made by Mardani and shahraki vahed (2009). The study population consisted of all nurses of Social Security Hospitals in Kerman (233) who were selected using census method. To analyze the information, descriptive statistics, test t, ANOVA and Pearson correlation coefficient were applied by use of SPSS v.16 software. Answers to open-ended questions on preventive strategies were categorised into themes using content analysis aproach.
Average score of barriers to error reporting was moderate (69 ±13). Fear of stigma, the effect of errors on the employee annual evaluation, news release and legal consequences were the most common barriers of error reporting by nurses. The main strategies to remove the barriers of error reporting were creating a safe and friendly environment for reporting, management process and error prevention.
Fear from the consequences of reporting errors was the major obstacles in reporting errors. Since error management still faces serious obstacles, so health authorities and managers should focus on the processes influencing nursing errors and identify ways to reduce errors including enhancing the organizational climate and job security of nursing staff.