Research Scholar Department of Pharmacy Practice, JSS College of Pharmacy, Mysuru Mysuru, India
Background: Patient safety is seriously threatened by the prevalence of medication errors (MEs) in healthcare accounting for 5% to 8% of hospital admissions and causing harm in a substantial fraction of cases, while the contributing factors (CFs) behind these errors remain largely unexplored.
Objectives: The study aimed at developing a new method for the quantification of the CFs associated to MEs.
Methods: A thorough literature review was conducted and a comprehensive survey questionnaire was developed using ishikawa method to identify the CFs affecting MEs. The questionnaire consists of 45 items split across three sub-domains. The first sub-domain, with 31 questions, assesses general factors such as stress, burnout, and fatigue using a 5-point Likert scale that ranges from "never" to "always." The second sub-domain, with 10 questions, focuses on eliciting perceptions and attitudes that may contribute to MEs in regards to patient- and ward-related activities. The final sub-domain, with 4 questions, is specifically aimed at assessing medication administration technique factors. The weight of each CF was determined based on extensive literature search and consulting panel of experts. The collected data was analyzed categorically, and the results were expressed as p-values, with a significance level of 0.05, to determine the statistical significance of the relationship between the CFs and MEs.
Results: A survey questionnaire was distributed among the nursing staff to assess the CFs to MEs. A total of 224 responses were received, with the majority [209 (93.3%)] being female and most [81 (36.16%)] of the participants being 31-40 years old. The majority [(92.41%) had a Diploma in General Nursing and Midwifery and close to 40% of nurses had 16-25 years of work experience. 14 CFs were identified and amongst the 224 respondents, and it was observed that a substantial proportion, [141 (62.95%)], reported high levels of compassion satisfaction, [187 (83.47%)] reported workload, and [154 (70.54%)] burnout moderately,[197 (87.9%)] reported distraction and drug-related awareness [167 (74.55%)]at low levels, [165 (75.5%)] reported prescription related factor, [91 (40.63%)] with staff-related factors and [67 (29.91%)] duty shifts affecting moderately on their work, and [176 (78.6%)] expressed fatigue, [30 (19%)] with family issues, [9 (4.5%)] said emergency situation and [22 (10%)] reported patient identification factors affecting moderately as being capable CFs to MEs.
Conclusions: There is a scarcity of research devoted to addressing emotional factors contributing to MEs; hence the study developed a novice tool to quantify these CFs to MEs. Workload, burnout, fatigue and duty shifts were statistically significant.
