Factors impeding nurses from reporting adverse events

To explore the reasons why Greek nurses are reluctant to report adverse events.

This study provides an understanding of why nurses fail to report adverse events so that we can introduce systems and develop cultures, which make this easier.

An exploratory study using the Adverse Events Questionnaire, which was administered to 214 nurses in 14 major Athens hospitals, comprising university as well as tertiary hospitals.

Five main reasons for not reporting were identified. They include the fear of the press, the licensing board, the difficulty in handling an adverse event, confidence about bringing up adverse events and the complaints by patients. Moreover, clustering variables into homogeneous sets, three latent variables were extracted. They include procedures, culture and dishonour, social control, workload and tradition.

Nurses' impeding factors for bringing up adverse events may be projected not only by cultural aspects such as professional, national and organizational cultures but also by healthcare practice structural issues such as safety systems, rules and procedures, and relevant acts and regulations.

Nursing management should change management rules and establish systems so that nurses work in a blame-free culture, which examines system factors as causes of error rather than individuals.