Nursing students' medication errors and their opinions on the reasons of errors: A cross-sectional survey

To determine number and type of medication administration errors made by nursing students, and to explore the rate of reportings, emotions after the errors and the causes of errors.

The cross-sectional study was conducted at the two schools of nursing, Akdeniz University, Antalya, Turkey, in February 2009, and comprised students having worked in hospital settings for a minimum of one semester and who had been involved in administering medications. SPSS 13 was used for statistical analysis.

Of the 324 subjects in the study, 124(38.3%) had made an error in clinical/field applications. Overall, 402 medication administration errors had been reported of which 155 (38.6%) were detected and corrected by academic nurses. The most common error reported was deviation from aseptic technique in 96(23.8%) cases. Most common emotions resulting from errors were fear in 45(28.8%) and anxiety in 37(23.5%). Most common cause was performance deficit in 141(43.4%) cases and the most common contributing factor was workload declared by 179(55.2%).

The error rate among nursing students was high whereas reporting of errors was low.