Factors leading to nursing medication errors

Abstract

ntroduction: Medication errors are a major problem in the clinical field and a direct risk for patients and their families. Nurses are responsible for the preparation and administration of medicines and are affected by various factors during their work, leading to errors.
Purpose: The purpose of the study was to investigate the factors that lead to errors in the administration of drugs by nurses.
Methods: This is a systematic review of the literature from 2018 to 2023. Research articles were retrieved from PubMed and Scopus using the PRISMA methodology. The study includes 14 articles dealing with quantitative or qualitative studies on nurses or patients.
Results: 37,9–73,5% of nurses reported having committed medication errors. The main factors for medication errors were workload/fatigue/burnout, lack of motivation/satisfaction, non-compliance with instructions, organization/staffing/communication, experience, environment, fear/impact, gender, education and the severity of the disease.
Conclusions: The incidence of medication errors by nurses is high and is influenced by both endogenous and exogenous factors. Medication errors can pose a great risk to the health outcome of patients and it would be useful to investigate them to a greater extent in order to identify the factors that lead to them, so that appropriate conditions can be created to prevent and limit them.