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Medication Errors in Perioperative Nursing: A Scoping Review
Chamila Wickramasinghe1,2, Sharon Latimer3, Brigid M Gillespie4,5
1School of Nursing and Midwifery, Griffith University, Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia.
Aim:
To map the current literature on the characteristics of nurse-related medication errors in perioperative healthcare settings.
Design:
A scoping review.
Methods:
This scoping review used the five-stage framework developed by Arksey and O'Malley (2005). The five stages are: (1) Identifying the Research Question; (2) Identifying Relevant Studies; (3) Study Selection; (4) Charting the Data; and (5) Collating, Summarising, and Reporting the Results. Findings were synthesised using the PAGER framework. An Ishikawa diagram was used to illustrate contributing factors of nurse-related medication errors.
Data Sources:
In October 2024, using key search terms, five databases (Scopus, EBSCO Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature, OVID Embase, EBSCO Medline, EBSCO PsycInfo) and two grey literature platforms (opengrey, Policy commons) were searched. The articles were imported to the Covidence database from Endnote after removing duplicate literature. Selected article titles and abstracts, and subsequently full-text articles, were screened by two trained reviewers based on a priori inclusion and exclusion criteria. Data were extracted from the included full-text articles by one author, checked by another, and analysed descriptively.
Results:
Of the 967 articles identified through the searches, 7 full-text articles were included. The incidence of nurse-related medication errors in perioperative settings ranged from 6.4% to 33.7%, with errors including incorrect medication routes, missed or delayed doses, and miscommunication-related overdoses. Contributing factors were multifaceted, involving workload pressures, communication failures, system flaws, and organisational influences such as leadership and safety culture.
Conclusion:
Medication errors in the perioperative setting pose a significant threat to patient safety yet remain underexplored compared to other healthcare contexts. A holistic approach incorporating human factors frameworks, improved communication, workload management, and leadership can help address the complex causes of these errors and guide targeted interventions to enhance perioperative safety and patient outcomes.
Reporting Method:
Scoping Reviews (PRISMA-ScR) checklist.
Patient Or Public Contribution:
No Patient or Public Contribution.
Trial And Protocol Registration:
Open science Framework Website. Registration DOI https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/EXT8C.
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