Perceptions regarding medication administration errors among hospital staff nurses of South Korea

Objective: To identify reasons for medication administration errors (MAEs) and why they are unreported, and estimate the percentage of MAEs actually reported among hospital nurses. Design: A cross-sectional survey design. Setting: Three university hospitals in three South Korean provinces. Participants: A total of 312 hospital staff nurses were included in this study. Main outcome: Medication administration errors. Results: Actual MAEs were experienced by 217 nurses (69.6%) during their clinical career, whereas 149 nurses (47.8%) perceived that MAEs only occur less than 20% rate. MAEs occurred mostly during intravenous (IV) administrations. Nurses perceived that the most common reasons for MAEs were inadequate number of nurses in each working shift (4.88 +/- 1.05) and administering drugs with similar names or labels (4.49 +/- 0.94). The most prevalent reasons for unreported MAEs included fears of being blamed (4.36 +/- 1.10) and having too much emphasis on MAEs as a measure of nursing care quality (4.32 +/- 1.02). The three most frequent errors perceived by nurses for non-IV related MAEs included administering medications to the incorrect patients and incorrect medication doses and drug choices. The three most frequent IV related MAEs included incorrect infusion rates, patients and medication doses. Conclusions: Nurse-staffing adequacy could be helpful to prevent MAEs among nurses as well ongoing education, and training regarding safe medication administration using the problem-based simulation education. In addition, encouraging nurses to identify and report work related errors in a non-punitive milieu will increase error reporting.