Nurses’perceptions of medication errors in Malta

Petrova, Elmira; Baldacchino, Donia; Camilleri, Martin

doi:10.7748/ns.24.33.41.s50

Cited by 5 publications

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“…The participants in this study pointed out this issue in hopes that management will focus more on what went wrong in the system rather than who caused the problem. Contrary to previous studies [14], [16], [23], [26], [44], [55], this research found that fear is considered a less important barrier to reporting MEs. Few participants were concerned about disciplinary actions, adverse response from bosses or colleagues, or a negative reaction from the patients and their relatives; this did not deter them from reporting the errors as patient safety is their top priority.…”

Section: Discussioncontrasting

confidence: 99%

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Perceptions and Attitudes towards Medication Error Reporting in Primary Care Clinics: A Qualitative Study in Malaysia

2016

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ObjectiveTo explore and understand participants’ perceptions and attitudes towards the reporting of medication errors (MEs).MethodsA qualitative study using in-depth interviews of 31 healthcare practitioners from nine publicly funded, primary care clinics in three states in peninsular Malaysia was conducted for this study. The participants included family medicine specialists, doctors, pharmacists, pharmacist assistants, nurses and assistant medical officers. The interviews were audiotaped and transcribed verbatim. Analysis of the data was guided by the framework approach.ResultsSix themes and 28 codes were identified. Despite the availability of a reporting system, most of the participants agreed that MEs were underreported. The nature of the error plays an important role in determining the reporting. The reporting system, organisational factors, provider factors, reporter’s burden and benefit of reporting also were identified.ConclusionsHealthcare practitioners in primary care clinics understood the importance of reporting MEs to improve patient safety. Their perceptions and attitudes towards reporting of MEs were influenced by many factors which affect the decision-making process of whether or not to report. Although the process is complex, it primarily is determined by the severity of the outcome of the errors. The participants voluntarily report the errors if they are familiar with the reporting system, what error to report, when to report and what form to use.

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Section: Discussioncontrasting

confidence: 99%

“…Among the reasons cited were being unsure of what and how to report [18–21], increased burden of effort for the HCPs [18], [19], [22], [23], organisational factors such as lack of feedback [21], [24], [25], blaming the individual instead of the system [14], [16], [17] and fear-related factors [13], [16], [26], [27]. …”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Perceptions and Attitudes towards Medication Error Reporting in Primary Care Clinics: A Qualitative Study in Malaysia

2016

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“…In addition, other common factors perceived to be associated with occurrence of error were more number of medicines prescribed to one patient; oral instruction in place of written medicine order; and use of acronyms instead of writing full medicine order. The findings are similar to existing literature which reported that medication error occurrence is mostly due to medicine related factors such as lookalike and sound alike medicines and prescriber related such as illegibility and use of acronyms 9,12,20 .…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 90%

Medication errors and associated factors as perceived by nurses working at the national referral hospital in Bhutan

Dema¹,

Zangmo²,

Dorji³

et al. 2022

Bhutan Health Journal

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Introduction: A common patient safety issue is medication error and this has remained a serious problem in hospital settings. Medication error occurs at any point of medication process: prescription, transcription, dispensing, and administration. Administration error is the most common type of error occurring among nurses; although nurses play a vital role in preventing harms of prescription and dispensing errors from reaching the patient. Therefore, this study was aimed at assessing medication errors and associated factors as perceived by nurses. Methods: The study was conducted at a tertiary hospital in Bhutan and 225 nurses participated through self-reported questionnaire. Data were double entered and validated in Epidata and analyzed using descriptive commands of statistical software STATA. Results: Among total participants of N = 225, 62.7% reported to have experienced medication error in past six months. Common type of error experienced were omission of dose; wrong time; wrong dose, and administering drugs without physician’s order. Nurses in intensive care units and those caring for pediatric patients reported experiencing more errors. The perceived factors were look-alike drugs, many patients with similar medicines, more medicines to single patient, and oral instructions and acronyms in prescription. Conclusions: The nurses reported to have experienced quite a high rate of medication error. The results may be used by relevant stakeholders in preventing and reducing medication errors, the biggest challenge of patient safety in hospital settings.

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“…disciplinary action or legal action) were prominent among nurses, AMOs and PAs compared to prescribers and pharmacists. This is consistent with previous studies of nurses in hospital settings [4,5,7,24,31,[54][55][56][57][58] and a study among nurses in community health service [50], who cited fear-related factors as a major obstacle to ME reporting. A possible explanation could be that the relative hierarchy and social influence between groups within a healthcare organisation deter reporting doctors' or pharmacists' errors by these groups.…”

Section: Perceived Barriers To Me Reportingsupporting

confidence: 91%

Knowledge, perceived barriers and facilitators of medication error reporting: a quantitative survey in Malaysian primary care clinics

et al. 2020

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Background Medication errors are the most common types of medical errors that occur in health care organisations; however, these errors are largely underreported. Objective This study assessed knowledge on medication error reporting, perceived barriers to reporting medication errors, motivations for reporting medication errors and medication error reporting practices among various health care practitioners working at primary care clinics. Setting This study was conducted in 27 primary care clinics in Malaysia. Methods A self-administered survey was distributed to family medicine specialists, doctors, pharmacists, pharmacist assistants, nurses and assistant medical officers. Main outcome measures Health care practitioners' knowledge, perceived barriers and motivations for reporting medication errors. Results Of all respondents (N = 376), nurses represented 31.9% (n = 120), followed by doctors (n = 87, 23.1%), pharmacists (n = 63, 16.8%), assistant medical officers (n = 53, 14.1%), pharmacist assistants (n = 46, 12.2%) and family medicine specialists (n = 7, 1.9%). Of the survey respondents who had experience reporting medication errors, 56% (n = 62) had submitted medication error reports in the preceding 12 months. Results showed that 41.2% (n = 155) of respondents were classified as having good knowledge on medication error and medication error reporting. The mean score of knowledge was significantly higher among prescribers and pharmacists than nurses, pharmacist assistants and assistant medical officers (p < 0.05). A heavy workload was the key barrier for both nurses and assistant medical officers, while time constraints prevented pharmacists from reporting medication errors. Family medicine specialists were mainly unsure about the reporting process. On the other hand, doctors and pharmacist assistants did not report primarily because they were unaware medication errors had occurred. Both family medicine specialists and pharmacist assistants identified patient harm as a motivation to report an error. Doctors and nurses indicated that they would report if they thought reporting could improve the current practices. Assistant medical officers reported that anonymous reporting would encourage them to submit a report. Pharmacists would report if they have enough time to do so. Conclusion Policy makers should consider using the information on identified barriers and facilitators to reporting medication errors in this study to improve the reporting system to reduce under-reported medication errors in primary care.

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Nurses’perceptions of medication errors in Malta

Cited by 5 publications

References 0 publications

Perceptions and Attitudes towards Medication Error Reporting in Primary Care Clinics: A Qualitative Study in Malaysia

Perceptions and Attitudes towards Medication Error Reporting in Primary Care Clinics: A Qualitative Study in Malaysia

Medication errors and associated factors as perceived by nurses working at the national referral hospital in Bhutan

Knowledge, perceived barriers and facilitators of medication error reporting: a quantitative survey in Malaysian primary care clinics

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