Intravenous Medication Administration Errors and their Causes in Cardiac Critical Care Units in Iran

Abstract

Background and Objectives:The dangerous events caused by medication errors are one of the main challenges faced in critical care units. The present study was conducted to determine the frequency of intravenous medication administration errors and their causes in cardiac critical care units in Iran.Materials and Methods:The present descriptive study was conducted in the critical care units (CCUs and cardiac surgery intensive care units) of 12 teaching hospitals. Of the total of 240 nurses working in these departments, 190 participated in the present study. The data collection tools used in this study included the “nurses’ demographic data questionnaire”, the “patients’ medical and demographic data questionnaire” and the “nurses’ self-reporting questionnaire about the frequency of intravenous medication administration errors and their causes”. The data obtained were analyzed in SPSS-20 using descriptive statistics such as the absolute and relative frequency.Findings:During the 2 months in which this study was being conducted, 2542 patients were admitted to these departments and 20240 doses of intravenous medications were administered to these patients. The nurses reported 262 intravenous medication administration errors. The most common intravenous medication error pertained to administering the wrong medication (n=71 and 27.1%). As for the causes of intravenous medication administration errors, 51.5% of the errors were associated with work conditions, 24% with packaging, 13.4% with communication, 9.9% with transcription and 1.2% with pharmacies.Discussion and Conclusion:According to the results, strategies are recommended to be adopted for reducing or limiting medication errors, such as building a stronger pharmacology knowledge base in nurses and nursing students, improving work conditions and improving communication between the nurses and physicians.

Debunking the myth that the majority of medical errors are attributed to communication

“…Many medication errors may be the result of cognitive errors in medical decision making, or skills‐based errors, or performance and knowledge deficits . The most commonly reported medication errors centred on miscalculated and mistaken doses, or missteps . Fifty‐three percent of the drug errors found by Kuo et al consisted of prescribing errors.…”

“…[32][33][34] The most commonly reported medication errors centred on miscalculated and mistaken doses, or missteps. 18,27,32,33,[35][36][37][38][39][40] Fifty-three percent of the drug errors The highest reported rate of communication errors was described as part of a cascade event analysis of anonymous error reports by Woolf et al 24 In an effort to identify various stages of mistakes and link chains of errors together, they found that 67% of errors reported by a group of family physicians could be attributed…”

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“…If one of these standards was incorrect, it means unmoral result and defects in hail cells. [15,[31][32][33][34] The gathered data were analyzed using version 16 of SPSS Software. First, Kolmogorov-Smirnov method was used to test the normality of data and continuity and paired t-tests such as Tokay significant difference test were used to find mean with significant difference compare to other means, as well as compare the averages and means of PTA and DPOAEs of right and left ears in two control and experimental groups.…”

Tipos, Causas E Estratégias De Intervenção Frente a Erros De Medicação: Uma Revisão Integrativa

“…Velocidade de infusão errada 19,22,23,28,29,[31][32][33]36,[44][45][46]49,54,57 Infusão mais rápida ou mais lenta que o recomendado 15 5,7…”

“…Paciente errado 1, 18,19,25,26,32,34,36,37,40,47,49,51,55 Administração de medicamento ao paciente errado 14 5,3 Monitoramento errado 19,26,32,36,38,43,49,53,[57][58][59]61 Medicamentos contraindicados, interações medicamento-medicamento, interação dietamedicamento, alergias documentadas, interação doença-medicamento, avaliação clínica 12 4,6…”