Abstract

Introduction: Medication administration is a key responsibility of nurses. If this duty is not properly accomplished, it can cause serious threats to the health and safety of patients. Aim: To explore factors affecting the frequency of medication errors from the perspective of nurses in educational hospitals of Ilam, Iran. Materials and Methods: The present descriptive analytical study was conducted on 120 nurses randomly selected from teaching hospitals of Ilam. A two part standard questionnaire was used. Its first part was on the participants demographic information. The second part consisted of three domains including 11 questions on the factors associated with nursing, seven questions on the factors associated with wards, and four questions on the factors associated with nursing management. Data analysis was performed using the SPSS software, version 19.0. The significant p-value was considered less than 0.05. A total of 120 completely filled questionnaires were obtained and this formed the study data. Results: The participants included 50 (42) males and 70 (58) females. In all the three domains, the most frequent factors resulting in the incidence of medication errors included: occupational fatigue exhaustion (58.5), nurses personal neglect (56), heavy workload in wards (65.6), and inadequate staffing and high nurse/patient ratios (69.7), respectively. Conclusion: Fatigue, personal carelessness, heavy workload, inadequate staffing and high nurse/patient ratios are the important and effective factors causing medication errors. Reducing the number of nurse's shifts during the month and increasing the number of personnel per shift are recommended.