Assignment 4

Running head: FACTORS AFFECTING THE REPORTING OF MEDICATION ERRORS BY NURSES 1

Running head: FACTORS AFFECTING THE REPORTING OF MEDICATION ERRORS BY NURSES 2

Factors Affecting the Reporting of Medication Errors by Nurses

Nurses are responsible for the provision of healthcare services and it is a requirement that the services provided to be of highest of quality. Nevertheless, the quality of patient care and safety is affected by preventable medication errors which can occur during any phase of the medication administration process. Though the root cause of the medication error may not be the fault of the nurse, the nurse could still be held accountable because they are supposed to do the final check and they are the last line of defense to advocate for the patient when it comes to administering medication. The cause of the medication errors by nurses or other healthcare providers could be associated with burnout, fatigue, inexperienced professionals, low nurse-patient ratio, and poor working environments, for example, too many distractions. Most nurses fail to report medications errors, some of the reasons being punitive measures and the general response from the organizational level. Though these medication errors are common, they can still be prevented with proper reporting systems in place. Due to the poor practices by nurses in reporting medication errors, the number of incidents concerning this problem continues to increase thus affecting the quality of healthcare being received by patients (Bifftu, Dachew, Tiruneh, & Beshah, 2016). This paper will discuss some factors affecting the reporting of medication errors by nurses as cited by the articles below.

Article I: Lee, E. (2017). Reporting of medication administration errors by nurses in South Korean hospitals. International Journal for Quality in Health Care, 29 (5), 728-734.

Article II: Bifftu, B. B., Dachew, B. A., Tiruneh, B., & Beshah, T. (2016). Medication administration error reporting and associated factors among nurses working at the University of Gondar referral hospital, Northwest Ethiopia, 2015. BMC nursing, 15 (1), 43.

Background

Article I

The authors of this article aimed at identifying the differences in the perception of nurses concerning medication errors, to find out the preparedness of nurses to report medication errors, and find out some of the barriers to the proper reporting of medication errors by nurses by hospital type in South Korea. The problem being addressed by the article is related to the poor system of reporting medication errors by the nurses. This problem appears to be affecting the quality and the safety of healthcare received by the patients in South Korean healthcare facilities. Therefore, to deal with this problem, their research question is based on: "what are the nurses’ considerations concerning medication errors? Also, what are the barriers to reporting, and what is the readiness of the nurses to report medication errors? The outcome of this article is important in the nursing practice since it reveals the role of reporting medication errors which aids towards the improvement of the medication and patient safety in healthcare facilities as well as the need for the healthcare system to make efforts towards increasing the incidences of reporting by the nurses (Lee, 2017).

Article II

The article was aimed at assessing the incidence of the medication administration error reporting and the related aspects amongst nurses who are employed at the University of Gondar Referral healthcare Facility in Northwest Ethiopia. The problem of focus by the authors of this article is on the poor reporting system and the factors that lead to an increase in poor reporting system of medication errors by nurses. Therefore, the research question of this paper is: what are the incidents of the medication administration error reporting and the factors associated with the poor reporting incidence among the nurses employed at the University of Gondar Referral Healthcare facility? The study is important to the nursing practice since it helps healthcare facilities to look at issues like the role played by the educational level of nurses, the various definitions used for the medication error to nurses as individuals, fear of punishment and a negative image, and the role of the administrative system. This enables nurses to design the methods of overcoming these factors which act as barriers to the proper reporting process of medication errors (Bifftu, Dachew, Tiruneh, & Beshah, 2016).

How the Article Support the Nurse Practice Issue Chosen

The PICOT question was aimed at looking at factors affecting the reporting of medication errors in the clinical setting.

Article I

In this article, the aim was to look at the definition used by the nurses in reference to what can be considered as a medication error and their preparedness to report and some of the obstacles preventing the effective reporting process. This article supports the chosen practice issue since it shows that the increase in the poor reporting practice of the nurses on medication errors is associated with the lack of a unified meaning of the medication errors, and some of the barriers that affect nurses’ willingness to report. Therefore this shows that nurses have a poor practices due to the fear of punishment and the repercussion associated with such a move thus discouraging them from engaging in effective reporting practices (Lee, 2017).

Article II

This article supports the practice issue since it shows that the issue of poor reporting practices among nurses in reporting medication errors is a common. The study also reveals that there are workplace issues or factors that affect effective reporting practices. Some of the organizational related factors include the role of the education status of the nurses, the administrative factors, fear of punitive action, and different definition of the term “medication error” (Bifftu, Dachew, Tiruneh, & Beshah, 2016).

Methods of Study

Article I

The authors of this article used a cross-sectional and descriptive design through the use of the questionnaire. This method is having the advantage of being not costly and does not require a lot of time. It helps in capturing the specific points which are specifically stated within questionnaires. It gives room for designing different variables which makes it possible to exhaust more information about the topic of study. Nevertheless, this study had several limitations, one of them being the use of convenience sampling which limits the generalizability of the results (Lee, 2017).

Article II

The authors employed an institution-based quantitative cross-sectional study method. The benefit of this method is that the data collected can be used for various types of studies. However, this type of method leads to a conflict of interest and not effective when it comes to the determination of the cause and the effect (Bifftu, Dachew, Tiruneh, & Beshah, 2016).

Results of the Study

Article I

The study reveals no significant variations concerning the perception of the nurses on what entails a medication administration error. The outcome of the study reported low incident of the reporting and that nurses were at higher chances of reporting an error to the physician as compared to the filing of the incident report. The cause of poor reporting of medication errors was associated with fear and the adverse impacts of reporting. The implication of this study is that it helps the nurses to make an improvement for the medication safety in healthcare facilities and putting of more effort to improve the reporting practices by the nurses and encourage non-punitive measures to encourage reporting medication errors. (Lee, 2017).

Article II

The poor practice of reporting medication errors was associated with the educational status of nurses, different definitions of the medication error, the administrative issues, and the fear related to the repercussion of reporting. This study is important in the nursing practices since it gives the true picture about approaches that can be adopted to ensure that there is improvement in the culture of error reporting for example through provision of the precise meaning of reporting errors and improving the educational level of nurses through training program (Bifftu, Dachew, Tiruneh, & Beshah, 2016).

Outcomes Comparison

The PICOT question was focuses on factors affecting the reporting of medication errors in the clinical setting. Therefore the successful implementation of these interventions will result in the removal of the barriers associated with poor reporting practices of the medication errors. There will be an improvement in the quality and safety of healthcare received by the patients due to absence of medication errors resulting from the reduction of fear, and improvement in the skills and knowledge associated with reporting among the nurses. The outcome of the articles is similar to the anticipated outcome since they indicate that the removal of fear from the adverse consequences of reporting the errors, training of the nurses, having clear definition of medication errors, leads to the increase in the reporting of the incidence of the medication errors thus helping in the improvement of quality and safety of the patient care.

References

Bifftu, B. B., Dachew, B. A., Tiruneh, B., & Beshah, T. (2016). Medication administration error reporting and associated factors among nurses working at the University of Gondar referral hospital, Northwest Ethiopia, 2015. BMC nursing, 15 (1), 43. https://bmcnurs.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12912-016-0165-3?utm_campaign=BMC_TrendMD&utm_medium=cpc&utm_source=TrendMD Lee, E. (2017). Reporting of medication administration errors by nurses in South Korean hospitals. International Journal for Quality in Health Care, 29 (5), 728-734. https://academic.oup.com/intqhc/article/29/5/728/4054193