Identification of Medical Errors Reporting Barriers from the Viewpoints of Operating Room Technologists in Educational and Therapeutic Centers Affiliated to Iran University of Medical Sciences

The operating room can be used to treat various types of medical errors due to numerous invasive procedures. The effects of recording error messages and timely reporting on preventing it and improving patient safety are of great importance.

The present study aimed to determine the barriers of medical reporting errors from the viewpoints of operating room technologists of the educational and therapeutic centers affiliated to Iran University of Medical Sciences in 2019.

The present study was a descriptive-analytical and temporal cross-sectional study performed on 152 operating room technologists selected using convenience sampling in 2019. The tool included demographic information and medical reporting errors. Data were analyzed using SPSS 22.

The Mean and standard deviation of total error reporting barriers was 1.98±0.36 (out of 3). The mean score of error reporting barriers in the four areas under review shows that the highest and lowest error reporting barriers results from legal domain (2.14±0.49) and financial factor (1.85±0.51), respectively The highest-error reporting barriers were subject to “personal accusation”, “fear of accusations and being charged of” and “ Workload”. The results of the t-test and analysis of variance showed that there was a significant difference between the error reporting barriers, gender (P=0.026) and work experience (P=0.031). However, there was no significant correlation between error reporting barriers and other variables (P> 0.05).

Exposing the person to accusations and fearing the consequences of reporting was one of the most important obstacles in delivering reporting errors. In this regard, the most important step in removing this obstacle is to create a space in which each room technologist expresses errors honestly and without fear and the reason for its occurrence to the other treatment team. Therefore, it is recommended that proper interaction be established between the operating room technologists and the authorities.