Factors affecting the incidence of medication errors in nursing staff of Besat Hospital in Sanandaj City in 2011

Medication errors are one the most common causes of preventable health care errors. Since nurses are the main controllers of the hospital’s wards and play a major role in looking after patients, the incidence of medication errors is one of the serious threats to the health and safety of the patients and nursing profession. This study aimed to determine the factors affecting the incidence of medication errors among nurses.

In this cross-sectional study, 100 nurses working in Besat hospital in Sanandaj city participated. The data collection tool was a two section questionnaire. The first section includes demographic data and the second part contains questions about medication errors in 5 areas. Data analysis was conducted by statistical software SPSS 16.
Findings: The results showed that all participants had a history of drug error in the last year. Age, gender and workload had a significant relationship with medication errors. The most common medication errors included wrong patient (26%), kind of drugs (19%), drug administration (9%), and the dosage and timing of drug (23%).

Human and organizational factors play a bigger role than other factors in the incidence of medication errors. Therefore, identifying these factors will help the health system and nurses in responding to obviate the causes and reduction of medication errors, improving patient safety and the quality of care.