Barriers to Reporting Clinical Errors in Operating Theatres and Intensive Care Units of a Teaching Hospital: A Phenomenological Study

Abstract

Background: Clinical errors are one of the challenges of health care in countries; moreover, the obtaining of accurate statistics regarding clinical errors in most countries is a difficult process and varies from one study to another. The current study was conducted to identify impediments in the reporting of clinical errors in the operating theatre and the intensive care unit of a teaching hospital.Methods This study was conducted qualitatively in the operating theatre and intensive care sections of a training hospital. Data collection was conducted through semi-structured with medical care staff and senior doctors and surgical assistants. Data analysis was carried out through listening to recorded interviews and developing tape scripts of the interviews. The meaning units were identified and codified based on the type of discussion. Furthermore, codes which had a common concept were categorized in one group and by using the designated groups, the main problems were derived. Finally, the codes and designated groups were analyzed, discussed and confirmed by a panel of four experts in qualitative content, and the existing main problems were identified and categorized.Results: Barriers to reporting clinical errors were extracted in two themes: individual and organizational problems. Individual problems included 4 categories and 12 codes and organizational problems included 6 categories and 17 codes. The results showed that in the majority of cases, nurses indicated their desire to change current prevailing attitudes in the workplace while doctors expected reform policies dealing with clinical errors in teaching hospitals to be implemented at higher levels by officials. Conclusion: in order to alleviate Barriers to reporting clinical errors, individual problems and organizational problems should be resolved. To reduce individual problems, it is recommended to train the nursing and medical team in the field of error recognition. In order to solve organizational problems in the nursing team, improve the process of reporting clinical errors and in the medical team, rectifying of legal loopholes should be considered.