Evaluating the Rate of Nurse's Errors in Administration of Medication Orders in General Departments of Hospitals in the City of Ilam

Administration of medications is taken into account as one of the most significant nursing measures whose correct fulfillment is of utmost importance. Thus, the present study aimed at determining the rate of nurses’ medication errors in general departments of hospitals in the city of Ilam in 2015.
In this descriptive cross-sectional study, the behavior of medication administration for 120 times performed by nurses working in general departments of hospitals in the city of Ilam was selected through convenience sampling method and then observed voluntarily and based on nonparticipation method via the use of a researcher-made checklist. The given checklist was comprised of 25 items for oral medications and 31 items associated with injectable .Content validity was confirmed using expert opinion and reliability by using a retest (/ 89) .The data were also analyzed using descriptive and analytical statistics within the SPSS16 software.
The results showed that the means and standard deviations of errors observed in the administration of oral and injectable medications were equal to 15.06±2.05 and 19.2±2.11; respectively. Moreover, the bulk of errors included lack of hand-washing and inconsistency between patient’s name and the Kardex. Additionally, no statistically significant relationship was found between medication errors and demographic data (p>0.05).
Given the importance of the prevention of medication errors in nursing, it is required to reduce nurses’ workload and also provide them with necessary training in order to enhance patient satisfaction as well as quality of care and treatment.