Background: Medication errors can cause serious problems for public health and is a threat to patient safety. The rate of these errors can be reduced by knowing risk factors and ways to prevent it. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate the causes of medication errors and strategies to prevent it. Materials and Methods: This article has reviewed medication errors in nurses by searching keywords: medication errors, nursing students and nurses, and prevention strategies in scientific databases SID, IranMedex, and Magiran. Results: Medication errors are the most common types of medical errors that today are used as an indicator of the extent of patient safety in hospitals, because of the high prevalence and theirs risks for patients. Most studies have mentioned factors such as fatigue, lack of nurses, mental problems, illegible physician orders in the patient file, and not having enough time as most important factors in medication errors. Conclusion: Based on the results obtained, to ensure the proper administration of medications, familiarity of nurses with principles of medication, right patient, right medication, and right dose, can minimize the error rate. To minimize medication errors in nurses, education of nurses, retraining courses in relation to the basic techniques of drug administration, revising the curriculum of nursing school, use of OSCE test to measure clinical skills, and adding a separate module called “drug calculations for nursing students” could be suggested.
Amini, M., Salari-Tabas, A., Charkht-Gorgij, E., Salehi-nia, H., & Yaghoubi, M. (2015). Investigating the causes of medication errors in nurses, and strategies to prevent it. Beyhagh, 18(2), 21-29.
MLA
Mahin Amini; Atefeh Salari-Tabas; Enamolhagh Charkht-Gorgij; Hamid Salehi-nia; Maryam Yaghoubi. "Investigating the causes of medication errors in nurses, and strategies to prevent it". Beyhagh, 18, 2, 2015, 21-29.
HARVARD
Amini, M., Salari-Tabas, A., Charkht-Gorgij, E., Salehi-nia, H., Yaghoubi, M. (2015). 'Investigating the causes of medication errors in nurses, and strategies to prevent it', Beyhagh, 18(2), pp. 21-29.
VANCOUVER
Amini, M., Salari-Tabas, A., Charkht-Gorgij, E., Salehi-nia, H., Yaghoubi, M. Investigating the causes of medication errors in nurses, and strategies to prevent it. Beyhagh, 2015; 18(2): 21-29.
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