Investigating the Effect of Reflection by Nurses on Medication Errors

 Safe medication and prevention of medication errors are important tasks of the nursing profession; it seems that one of the causes of medication errors by nurses is incorrect habitual practices and actions without reflection.  The aim of the study was to Investigate the effect of reflection by nurses on their medication errors in Shahid Motahari Hospital in Jahrom.

This study was a quasi-experimental before and after single-group study, which was conducted on 30 nurses working in Motahhari Hospital in 2021 who were enrolled in the study by the census. The reflection training was conducted in three sessions in a presentation using the Gibbs cycle; In addition, nurses were trained for one month on the reflection process by using scientific and scenarios related to medication errors on WhatsApp. The 20-item medication error questionnaire with a specificity of 0.91 and reliability of r = 0.86 was completed by nurses before and 3 months after the intervention. The collected data were analyzed using the Wilcoxon test using SPSS20 software.

The results of the Wilcoxon test showed that the mean of total medication errors of nurses before the intervention was (22.20±26.44) and three months after the intervention was (12.57±17.33), and statistically, there was a significant decrease in the average medication errors of nurses (P = 0.001).

Performing reflection by nurses reduced their medication errors. Therefore, it is suggested to use this learning method in order to guide nurses to use critical and reflective thinking in playing a critical role in drug therapy in order to prevent medication errors and maintain patient safety.