Barriers to the reporting of medication administration errors among nursing students

Abstract

Objective: The main aim of this study was to describe the perceived barriers to medication administration error (MAE) reporting among nursing students.

Design: A cross‑sectional, descriptive study was conducted using self‑report questionnaires. An 18‑item barriers to MAEs reporting questionnaire with 6‑ point Likert‑type scale (1=strongly disagree, to 6=strongly agree) was used for this study.

Setting: Three nursing schools at Arak University of Medical Sciences in Iran.

Subjects: Two hundred and forty nursing students were invited through census method.

Main outcome measure: Nursing students’ perceived barriers to MAE reporting.

Results: Nursing students estimated 80.12% of all medication errors by nursing students are reported to their instructors. Administrative barrier (standardised mean=4.31) and fear (standardised mean=4.24) were the top two reasons for not reporting medication errors among nursing students.

Conclusions: Findings from this study suggest MAE occurrences among nursing students are often underreported. Nursing student’s instructors must demonstrate positive responses to nursing students for reporting medication errors to improve patient safety.