Exploration of Nurses’ Knowledge, Attitudes, and Perceived Barriers towards Medication Error Reporting in a Tertiary Health Care Facility: A Qualitative Approach
1
Department of Pharmaceutics, Faculty of Pharmacy, Tripoli University, Tripoli 42300, Libya
2
Department of Pharmacy Practice, Faculty of Pharmacy, Universiti Teknologi Mara, Puncak Alam 42300, Malaysia
3
Department of Pharmacy Practice, Kulliyyah of Pharmacy, International Islamic University Malaysia, Kuantan 25200, Malaysia
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Pharmacy 2018, 6(4), 120; https://doi.org/10.3390/pharmacy6040120
Received: 15 September 2018 / Revised: 1 November 2018 / Accepted: 2 November 2018 / Published: 5 November 2018
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Improving Medication Safety: Role of Providers, Patients and Technology)
Medication error reporting (MER) is an effective way used to identify the causes of Medication Errors (MEs) and to prevent repeating them in future. The underreporting of MEs is a challenge generally in all MER systems. The current research aimed to explore nurses’ knowledge on MER by determining their attitudes towards reporting and studying the implicated barriers and facilitators. A total of 23 nurses were interviewed using a semi-structured interview guide. The saturation point was attained after 21 interviews. All the interviews were tape-recorded and transcribed verbatim, and analysed using inductive thematic analysis. Four major themes and 17 sub-themes were identified. Almost all the interviewees were aware about the existence of the MER system. They showed a positive attitude towards MER. The main barriers for MER were the impacts of time and workload, fear of investigation, impacts on the job, and negative reactions from the person in charge. The nurses were knowledgeable about MER but there was uncertainty towards reporting harmless MEs, thus indicating the need for an educational program to highlight the benefits of near-miss reporting. To improve participation strategies, a blameless reporting culture, reporting anonymously, and a simplified MER process should be considered.
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Keywords:
medication error reporting; nurses’ attitudes; qualitative study; barriers; medication error
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MDPI and ACS Style
Dyab, E.A.; Elkalmi, R.M.; Bux, S.H.; Jamshed, S.Q. Exploration of Nurses’ Knowledge, Attitudes, and Perceived Barriers towards Medication Error Reporting in a Tertiary Health Care Facility: A Qualitative Approach. Pharmacy 2018, 6, 120.
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