Nurses' perceptions of how physical environment affects medication errors in acute care settings Introduction "Medication errors results from the interaction of multiple factors that include regulatory environment, organizational leadership and commitment, management policies and procedures, complexity of tasks involved, work culture, and physical environment" (Chaudhury, Mahmood, & Valente, 2009, p. 229). Health care services that nurses perform in the hospital environments are physically and psychologically intense, which can potentially result in burnout, stress, and medication errors. Crowded and poorly designed work spaces are factors that contribute to staff stress, resulting in the risk of increase medication errors (Chaudhury et al., 2009). Ulrich, Zimring, Quan, Joseph, and Choudhary, 2004 (as cited in Chaudhury et al., 2009) "argued that reduction of nursing staff stress and error by physical environmental dimensions (such as air quality, acoustics, lighting, and so on) can have a significant impact on staff health and efficiency" (p. 230). There is limited research on the how physical environment affects medication errors. For this study, the research question was: "What is the nurses' perception of the role of the physical …show more content…
Environmental characteristics such as the location of the medication room (n 28, 34.1 and the medication dispensation method (n 28, 34.6%) were rated "somewhat helpful." Environmental characteristics rated as "somewhat problematic" were the nursing station layout (n 26, 31.7%), size of the medication room (n = 29, 34.9%), and heating and cooling systems (n =- 28, 33.7%). Lack of privacy in the nursing stations (n 32, 38.6%) and visibility to all areas of the nursing unit (n 31, 37.8%) were rated the most problematic environmental characteristics (Chaudhury et al.,