ASSIGNMENT 3

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

FACTORS RELATED TO THE REPORTING OF MEDICATION ERRORS BY NURSES 3

Factors Affecting the Reporting of Medication Errors by Nurses

One fundamental aspect in the delivery of healthcare is the safety of the patients. The safety of the patients is a priority for every healthcare system and it involves providing quality and safe care. However, the quality of healthcare is greatly affected by medication errors nurses make and even worse by the poor system surrounding the reporting of those medication errors. The process of delivering safe care must be free of medication errors, and ensure an effective system of reporting medication errors which will not only prevent further harm to patients but also to help in designing measures to prevent such errors in the future. Due to the poor or lack of reporting system in healthcare facilities, the maintenance and improvement of quality healthcare and safety of the patients is affected . The poor reporting practices are associated with fear, administrative barriers, and the lack of commitments from the hospital management. Therefore, the poor reporting practices by nurses are associated with several factors which act as barriers. This paper will discuss some factors related to reporting of medication errors by nurses backed-up by the articles below. Article I: Hashemi, F., Nasrabadi, A. N., & Asghari, F. (2017). Factors associated with reporting medical errors in Iran: a qualitative study. BMC Nursing, 11 (1), 20. https://doi.org/10.1186/1472-6955-11-20

Article II: Alqubasi, M., Tonna, A., Strath, A., & Stewart, D. (2016). Exploring behavioural determinants relating to health professional reporting of medication errors: a qualitative study using the Theoretical Domains Framework. European journal of clinical pharmacology, 72 (7), 887-895. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27066954

Background of Study

Article I

The study was aimed at clarifying the factors linked to the reporting of the nursing errors through the experience of the clinical nurses and the nursing managers. This research work was guided by the research question aimed at determining the barriers preventing nurses from giving reports on the medication errors. The problem that the authors of this study dealt with was related to the reporting of the professionals' errors. The safety of the patient in healthcare is affected by the increasing number of avoidable medication errors which then tends to be common in most healthcare facilities (Hashemi, Nasrabadi, & Asghari, 2017). The major area of focus of healthcare facilities and healthcare providers needs to be on the safety of the patients. The safety of the patients is achieved through a reduction of medication errors once they are identified. The successful process of dealing with medication errors need proper reporting to determine the type of errors and the best solution that can be used to deal with them. However, due to the poor process of giving reports on medication errors by healthcare professionals, it becomes hard to improve on the safety of the patients. This study is important to nursing since it informs about the importance of identifying the barriers to the process of providing reports on the medication errors to help in the improvement of patient safety. This study also informs about some of the factors that are acting as barriers towards reporting of nursing errors (Hashemi, Nasrabadi, & Asghari, 2017).

Article II

Successful medical error reporting processes are important in the promotion of the patients’ safety. According to the authors of this article, there is inadequate research that has explored the reporting of medication errors by the proffesionals in the medical field. Therefore, this study was aimed at describing as well as providing knowledge about the behavioral determinants of the healthcare providers' reporting of medication errors. The research question in this article was aimed at determining the attitude of the nurses towards givig reports of the medication errors. This study is important in the nursing practice since the determinants in this study can be used to help in mapping the behavioral change strategies that healthcare facilities can develop as interventions, improving the organizational reporting and safety culture, and improving the effectiveness of the medication error reporting (Alqubasi, Tonna, Strath, & Stewart, 2016).

How the Study Support the Nurse Practice Issue Chosen

Article I

The article is supports the chosen issue since it attempts to explain some of the barriers to the process of giving reports on medication errors by the nurses. The chosen issue was focuses on whether the work environment encourages nurses to give reports on medication errors promptly. This article confirms that nurses are faced with several challenges that prevent the process of reporting medication errors by the nurses. This implies that within these facilities, nurses are facing challenges when it comes to reporting the medication errors thus making it hard to improve on the safety of the patients (Hashemi, Nasrabadi, & Asghari, 2017).

Article II

The article attempts to gain an understanding of the behavioral patterns of the nurses when it comes to the reporting of medical erros. This research work shows that there are behaviors among nurses which makes it hard for the facility to get medication errors reported to design the best solutions to the issue. The behaviors of the nurses might be based on the individuals' attitudes or might be due to the underlying factors within the facilities (Alqubasi, Tonna, Strath, & Stewart, 2016).

Methods of Study

Article I

The authors of this article utilized qualitative study techniques and adopted the focus group methodology to help in investigating the nurses' perceptions as well as their feelings concerning some of the factors linked to the process of giving reports of the nursing errors. Before meeting the participants, written informed consent were acquired from the participants. About 115 nurses employed in the healthcare facilities working in the clinics affiliated to Tehran and Shiraz were targeted. Semi-structured group discussion was used to gather data in a 17 sessions. The data wes analyzed using a content analysis approach. Even though the focused-group discussion study method employed by the researchers help in the measurement of the reaction of the participants, it however not effective in covering maximum depth on this issue. It is also possible for the members not to express their honest and personal thoughts (Hashemi, Nasrabadi, & Asghari, 2017).

Article II

When compared to the previous study which involved the focused group discussion, this study utilized qualitative face-to-face design and the semistructured interviews. The study was performed in three major medical-surgical healthcare facilities with 412, 451, and 461 beds In Abu Dhabi United Arab Emirates. The method employed by the authors helped in covering the maximum depth of the issue, however, it cannot guarantee the honesty of the study subjects and sometimes hard to compare the responses (Alqubasi, Tonna, Strath, & Stewart, 2016).

Results of Study

Article I

The outcome of the study shows that nurses faced barriers that prevented them from reporting the medication error incidences. The fear and administrative barriers were the key barriers to the factors that are preventing nurses from giving reports on the medication errors. The results of this study have implications in the nursing practice since it shows that training the nurses and the nursing managers about the goals of error reporting and methods of utilizing the information is important in making improvements to the safety of the patients and the quality of the healthcare (Hashemi, Nasrabadi, & Asghari, 2017).

Article II

The safety of the patients and the organization is determined by the behavioral determinants of reporting of the medication errors. Nurses fear giving reports medication errors since they believe that their career is important and are not ready to be responsible for those errors thus prefer to ignore the reporting of the medication errors. Nurses are also discouraged from reporting since they do not receive feedback after reporting. They also fear that they might affect their professional reputation. This study implies that the determinants in the study can be used to map the behavioral changes strategies that help in the promotion of the development of the interventions, promoting the safety and a culture of reporting, and improvement of the medication error reporting (Alqubasi, Tonna, Strath, & Stewart, 2016).

Ethical Consideration

Article I

The ethical consideration of the study was achieved through giving a description of the research purpose, seeking written informed consent forms for participants participating in the group discussion, taking records of the participants’ voice, willingness to share the study results, maintenance of the anonymity, and allowing the participants the choice of withdrawing from the study at any stage (Hashemi, Nasrabadi, & Asghari, 2017).

Article II

The authors followed the ethical procedures required before the performance of this research work. This is because the authors obtained ethical approval from the ethical review panel of the university in the United Kingdom and the ethics committee of each hospital from the United Arab Emirates that participated in the study (Alqubasi, Tonna, Strath, & Stewart, 2016).

Conclusion

Patient safety is considered to be an important aspect in the quality of healthcare. The issue of healthcare quality is affected by the poor reporting practices by the nurses. The poor reporting practices are associated with the fears and the barriers from the administration. These barriers are affecting the efforts and willingness of the nurses to report on the medication errors. Nurses also fear a bad reputation and losing their jobs when they give reports on the medication errors especially if those errors are caused by the nurses themselves. The poor reporting approaches is also increased by the lack of commitment from the hospital management to provide the feedback on some of the strategies that are being planned to help in dealing with those issues. So, there needs to be a better system in place that encourages nurses in the work environment to report medication errors to ensure the safety of patients which is the number one priority in health care.

References

Alqubasi, M., Tonna, A., Strath, A., & Stewart, D. (2016). Exploring behavioral determinants relating to health professional reporting of medication errors: a qualitative study using the Theoretical Domains Framework. European journal of clinical pharmacology, 72 (7), 887-895. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27066954 Bahadori, M., Ravangard, R., Aghili, A., Sdeghifar, J., Manshadi, M. G., & Smaeilnejad, J. (2013). The Factors Affecting the Refusal of Reporting on Medication Errors from the Nurses' Viewpoints: A Case Study in a Hospital in Iran. ISRN Nursing. Hashemi, F., Nasrabadi, A. N., & Asghari, F. (2017). Factors associated with reporting medical errors in Iran: a qualitative study. BMC Nursing, 11 (1), 20.