Introduction: One of the most common care interventions performed by nurses is drug therapy and medication errors are the most common type of medical error in medical centers. The aim of this study was to determine the frequency of medication errors and their related factors in Kashan Shahid Beheshti Hospital staff.
Methods: This descriptive-analytical study was performed in Shahid Beheshti Hospital of Kashan University of Medical Sciences in 2016. To collect the data, four hospital wards were selected randomly at first and the researcher-made questionnaire with 29 open-ended questions and a 20-question checklist were used to investigate drug errors. The data collection tool was completed by the observer while accompanying and observing the nurse in charge of the medication. Descriptive and inferential statistics were used for data analysis. The data were analyzed by SPSS software version 16.
Results: In this study, a total of 65 nurses were observed in four departments of internal medicine, surgery, intensive care and emergency for 301 doses of medication. The highest frequency of medication errors according to the types of errors were incorrect time (41.74%), wrong medication (18.88%) and wrong technique (14.23%). The highest number of medication errors according to the drug administration stage were in drug administration (20.02%) and then in drug preparation (5.04%) and finally in drug prescription (2.94%).
Conclusions: According to the results of the present study, it can be concluded that medication errors are common in nurses. Therefore, it is necessary to educate the fundamentals of medication properly considering all safety considerations.