INTRODUCTION AND PEARPOSE: Drug administration forms a major part of the clinical nurse's role. Medication administration by the nurse is only one part of a process that also involves doctors and pharmacists (Betz et al. 1985). Medication errors have serious direct and indirect results, and are usually the consequence of breakdowns in a system of care. Direct results include patient harm as well as increased healthcare costs. Indirect results include harm to nurses in terms of professional and personal status, confidence, and practice (Mayo et al. 2004). Ten to 18% of all reported hospital injuries have been attributed to medication errors (Hume 1999). Five percent of all medication errors reported to the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) …show more content…
Physicians, pharmacists, unit clerks, and nurses can be involved in the occurrence of medication errors (Mayo et al. 2004). No studies have demonstrated strong relationships between nurse characteristics (i.e., age, years of practice, and education) and number of medication errors (Osborne et al. 1999). This would seem to indicate that any nurse is potentially at risk for making a medication error (Mayo et al. 2004). Prevention of medication errors is linked to accurate reporting of medication errors. Reporting medication errors is dependent on individual nurse’s decision making. Medication errors are typically reported through institutional reporting systems such as incident reports (Wakefield et al.1996). Moore (1998), however, estimated that organizations relying on incident reports to provide data miss up to 95% of the medication errors. Several studies have demonstrated underreporting among nurses (Gladstone 1995; Osborne et al. 1999; Kapborg et al. 1999). Nurses themselves believe only 25% of all medication errors are reported using incident reports (Osborne et al. 1999). Nurse managers and physicians also believe that medication errors are underreported by nurses (Kapborg et al. …show more content…
1999). METHODS: Sample and setting: The target population is all registered nurses working in critical care units (intensive care unit ICU, coronary care unit CCU) in Jordan. The accessible population was 83 registered nurses works in critical care units (ICU and CCU) at two privet hospitals in Amman, data collected in April and May, 2006. A convenience sample used through many visits to selected hospitals (two privet hospitals in Amman). Although “the convenient sample provides little opportunity to control bias” (Burns et al. 2001, p.374), “The convenience sample is the most commonly used sampling in nursing” (Polit et al. 1995, p.233), And it save time and money (Marie 1992). Design: quantitative cross sectional descriptive design was used, in order to identify what nurses believe constitutes a medication error, what is reportable, and what barriers to reporting