Nursing strategies for preventing medication errors preparation and administration in pediatric inpatients

Objective: This study was conducted to examine the frequency of pediatric medication administration errors and to identify contributing conditions and, determining the effect of prevention strategies created according to Organisational Model of Accidents (OMA).Method: This research has used the undisguised observation method in determining the frequency and types of medication administration errors. Observation results have been employed to determine contributing factors and in addition, Critical Incident Technique was used in conducting face to face interviews with nurses. Errors and contributing factors were classified through OMA.Results: Medication administration errors rate was 28.2 % in pre-intervention phase. Medication administration errors rate was 21.4 % in post intervention. The most frequent errors were wrong time and wrong dose errors. There was a significant reduction of medication administration errors in the third phase of the study: wrong time %3.6 and wrong dose %3. Rate of total interruptions was significantly lower in third phase (23.2%) compared with first phase (36.3%). Our results demonstrate that medication administration errors and violations result from interrelated factors concerning the system. A large portion of total error consisted of violations. In the interviews and observations, it was determined that the inadequacy of medication preparation and administration protocols, workload, interruptions, personnel and equipment inadequacies contributed to error.Conclusion: The outcomes of the study declare that medication administration errors are multifactorial and it has vital importance to understand the latent conditions of errors. The results obtained in our study point to importance of systematic approach to prevention of medication errors.