Environmental Factors Contributing to Medication Errors in Intensive Care Units

Medication errors are one of the most common types of medical errors. In Intensive Care Units, because of its special circumstances, the risk of such errors is increasing. There are several causes for the medication errors of nurses, including environmental factors. The current study aimed at determining environmental factors contributing to medication errors based on the perceptions of ICU nurses. The current analytical cross-sectional study was conducted on 281 nurses working in special care units ICU of hospitals affiliated to Guilan University of Medical Sciences in 2014. Nurses’ perspectives of environmental factors were investigated using a two-part researcher-designed questionnaire. The collected data were analyzed using Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA). Two factors with a predictive power of 68.32% remained as the most important environmental factors. The first factor explained 36.47% of the total variance of medication errors and the second factor explained 31.84%. The first factor consisted of three variables of “poor lighting”, “high noise levels”, and “inappropriate room temperature”, while the second factor included the variables of “high number of patients”, “lack of equipment for injection and drop-rate setting”, and “inadequate space for medication preparation”. Among these variables, poor lighting with a factor loading of 0.89 was reported as the most important environmental factor contributing to medication errors. Since poor lighting, high noise levels, and inappropriate room temperature were determined as the most contributing environmental factors to medication errors, it is recommended that managers and authorities of hospitals prevent and mitigate medication errors and improve patient’s safety by modifying environmental conditions.