Perception and experience with medication errors among nurses at Indhira Gandhi Memorial Hospital (IGMH) / Mausooma

Abstract

Background:
Medication error is one of the global impacts which occur in the medical field, which strikes at the heart of the nurses. Medication errors have serious direct and indirect effects of the patients. The causes of medication error are either individual or systemic. It can be one of the life-threatening issue which is of all health care professionals who gives direct care to the patient is aware that it is inevitable. Purpose: Purpose of the study is to find out the perception and experience among nurses at Indhira Gandhi Memorial hospital.

Study design:
A qualitative descriptive study was used, and in-depth face to face interview was conducted to the nurses working in 05 selected wards of IGMH. The target population of the study will be nurses working in the 05 different wards Pediatric ward, Medical ward Accident and Emergency Department, Labour room and Private ward 2 of IGMH who administer medications for all types of patients.

Results:
Nurses strongly feel that medication error can be minimize by improving the working environment of the nurses, by arranging the frequent refreshing classes to update and gain the knowledge of nurses and also by double checking the medication.

Conclusions:
It is absolutely impossible to prevent all medication errors, but the role of hospital administration is to minimize and reduce the errors. However, most of the medication errors may not cause harm to patients, but they need to be more planning and supervision. To minimize medication errors, reporting is a very important ethical issue. It can thus help in improve in patient safety and proper health care.


Keywords: Incident reporting, medication error, prescribing errors, double checking, nurse, nursing workload.