Contributing Factors to Medication Errors Among Nurses in Iran: A Systematic Review

Abstract

Introduction Patient safety is an important priority in the healthcare systems which aim to prevent medical errors before leading, harm, injury or death to patients. 1 safety and risk management are referred to minimizing the risks at the acceptable level. 2 As, harming to patients or healthcare seekers is contradicted with the philosophy of health care, 3 preventing medical errors is considered as patient safety dimension. Generally, Medical errors are significant and threatening challenges in all countries. 4 Annual deaths from medication errors account for 7000 out the total number of 48 000-98 000 deaths due to drug-induced complications. Medication errors are listed as one of the five medical error categories classified by the American Institute of Medicine. 5 It is Also, estimated that 55 000 medical errors occur each year, resulting 10 500 deaths and 23 000 physical disabilities. 6 The results of a study about medication error in 2 teaching hospitals in Boston showed that, 1% of the incidents are fatal, 12% life-threatening, 30% serious and 57% significant and dangerous. Forty-two percent of classified incident serious were preventable. 7 In Iran, 8% of hospital treatments results in medication side effects which is more than the US (2.4-5.6 %). 8 Medication administration is one of the fundamentals of nursing, which requires technique, skill and consideration to the client. Considering, each nurse spends an average of 40% of the attending time in hospital to administer medication to clients, nurses are at risk for medication errors. 9 The initial outcome of these errors is an increase of hospital stay and cost and severe harm or even death. 10 In 1999, Institute of Medicine report on quality of health care, To Error Is Human: Building a Safer Health System called for a more systematic approach to medical errors and outlined the importance of identifying and learning from errors through mandatory and voluntary reporting system. Medication errors have a huge impact on health care system, patients and payers alike. It compromises the confidence of patients on health care system. 11 Therefore, based on the importance of nursing medication error in Iran, a systematic review has been conducted. The aim of this systematic review is to identify the contributing factor of nurses' medical errors in published Persian articles. Methods In this systematic review, contributing factors of medication errors among nurses were investigated. The search strategy was conducted using the Cochrane seven stage process

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