The relationship between medication errors and nurse's work environment

Providing safe care is one of the nursing goals and medication error is considered as one of the threatening factor for patient safety. The current study was conducted to determine the relationship between the medication errors and nurses’ work environment.
This is a cross-sectional and correlation study. Study population was including the nurses working in hospitals affiliated to Tehran University of Medical Sciences in 2012. 300 nurses were selected through stratified sampling method.. Data were collected by demographic questionnaire, Nurses Work Environment scale and medication errors researcher-made questionnaire. Data were analyzed through using SPSS16, Pearson’s correlation coefficient, Kruskal–Wallis and Independent t-Test.
The mean score of medication errors of nurses was (15.12±4.14) and the mean score of nurses work environment index was (67.34±5.6). Most types of reported medication errors concerning the frequency of them were respectively as medication later or earlier than scheduled (24 percent), lack of necessary measures before the medication (17.4 percent), non-compliance with medication right time (10.9 percent). Nurse-physician relationship was reported as the most adverse aspect in context of work environment. There is a significant inverse relationship between the occurrence of medication errors and conditions of nurses work environment (p Based on the study results, whatever the nurses working conditions are more desirable, the amount of medication errors is lower. Thus, it is essential to application of effective strategies by managers for improving work conditions and consequently providing safe care of patients.