Background & Aims: Medical errors are one of the major challenges threatening the health system in all countries. The most common medical errors are medication errors (especially drugs) and the first natural result of medication errors is increasing patient’s length of stay in hospital, raised treatment costs, and sometimes severe damage and even death.

Materials & Methods: This descriptive study was conducted on nurses working in a second-level university hospital selected from general surgery, pediatrics and internal wards by random sampling method. Study method included direct observation of the preparation and the administration of intravenous drugs by nurses in the inpatient sections. The data were collected using check lists and analysis was done using descriptive statistics and SPSS software.

Results: In this study, the overall 232 intravenous injections was registered that medication errors were found in135. About 63.7% errors were related to errors in intravenous injection phase and 36.30% of the errors were related to the procurement procedure. The most common causes of medication errors were related to drug infusion rate 22.96% and then mistake in the amount of injection and diluting the drug with the appropriate volume of solvent 17.04%. The most important underlying causes were related to the age of nurses and their section.

Conclusion: Analysis of the data indicates that the main reasons for the prevalence of medication errors are directly linked to the injections and the type of section (p = 0.02) and nurses’ age (p = 0.0). Although most of these errors are minor and may not cause patient injury, medication errors represent quality of personnel. So the errors in this study suggest the need for retraining and continuing education programs for nursing staff.

SOURCE: URMIA MED J 2016: 27(2): 147 ISSN: 1027-3727