Medication Errors In Nursing Practice

For many patients the scariest part of being in the hospital is having to rely on other people to control their life changing decisions. There are multiple causes of patient harm, one of the major contributors are medication errors made by health care professional. Medication errors are inappropriate dispensing and administration of drugs which cause harmful effects such liver damage and excessive bleeding. Most cases of medication errors in hospitals occur as a result of wrong diagnosis by the doctors leading administration of inappropriate drug, poor communication between doctors and nurses and between patients and nurses who issue the drugs. However in an article by the International Journal of Nursing practice, in Australia many occurrences

The purpose of the research was to explore what factors influence the practice the practice of medication administration for nursing students when in the off campus clinical setting. Students in the final year of a Bachelor of Nursing program from one university in Queensland were target for participation. Students who wanted to participate were sent a questionnaire and a consent

Of the 28 participants interviewed, nine reported making a medication error or experiencing a ‘near miss’ with particular focus on the level of supervision that was provided. A ‘near miss’ refers to a time when a student makes an error in the preparation of medication for a patient (Reid -Searl, 2010). The error had the potential to cause harm but no harm was initiated because it was corrected before administering it to the patient. Most of the participants who stated causing an actual error described receiving no supervision from a registered nurse at the time. One participant even stated that when realizing he made an error he went straight to the nurse to confess and she told him to not tell anyone and brush it under the rug. The results of the study suggest that errors are more likely to be made when required supervision levels are not provided by the registered nurse. The study concluded with results that recommend all nursing students to be supervised in the clinical setting. Undergraduate nursing student are at risk of making errors when administering medications to patients in hospitals. Adequate supervision assisted avoiding errors which indicates that supervision is an essential component for safe medication administration by nursing students. Educators for the nursing