Reasons for nurses not to report medi̇cal errors

This is a descriptive study to determine the reasons for nurses not to report medical errors. The study was conducted with 171 nurses working in the Adnan Menderes University Research and Teaching Hospital between the dates of September 2016-May 2017. A 21-item questionnaire about the reasons for reporting medical errors in the collection of data was used. Descriptive statistical methods (number, percentage, mean) and chi-square test were used for data evaluation. The mean age of the nurses included in the study was 27.52±6.9; 89.9% of these nurses were female, 45.9% had a graduate degree. 81.8% of the nurses claimed that they met medical errors and 66.1% of the nurses that they reported medical errors. The reasons why nurses did not report the most medical errors are: they believed that generally they would be blamed if patients were affected by such medical errors (72.97%); that patients and patient families would be hostile to them if they reported errors (72.30%); feared that they would be sued (59.46%); feared that physicians would have a negative reaction towards them (59.46%) and they believed that the hospital management would impose a penalty if they reported medical errors (58.11%). Nurses are at least as likely to report medical errors as unnecessary if the patient was unharmed (13.51%), reporting medical errors did not contribute to developing patient safety practices (10.81%). When nurses reported errors, a statistically significant difference was found between the idea of being able to work and the year of study. When the error was reported, a statistically significant difference was found between the opinions of the physicians about getting negative reactions, the punishment from the hospital administration and the many error reporting forms. According to research findings, nurses did not report any negative reaction to the accusation, patient, patient relatives and physicians, and thought of being punished by hospital management and medical malpractice.