Medication Administration Error and Associated Factors among Nurses Working in Public Hospitals of Harari Region, Eastern Ethiopia

Abstract

Introduction: Medication administration errors are among the recognized challenges in the hospitals which endanger patient safety and result in prolonging hospital stay, economic impact, physical disability and even death on patient and also could erode public confidence on health xi institution. From all health professionals, nurses are foremost in giving medication to patients so that conducting this study among nurses has great importance to take actions to prevent medication administration errors. Objective: To assess magnitude of medication administration error and associated factors among nurses working in Public Hospitals of Harari Region from January- February, 2017. Methodology: Hospital-based cross-sectional study design was used from January- February, 2017. All nurses working in HFSUH and Jugal hospitals and involved in medication administration were included in study. Observation was made on a nurse while giving medication to patients using observation checklist and interviewed at the end of observation weeks using pre-tested questionnaire. Data was entered to Epi-data and exported to SPSS software version 20 for analysis. Variables with p< 0.25 in bivariate analysis became candidate for multivariate analysis. Adjusted odds ratio from multivariate analysis with 95% CIs and p-value of 0.05 and less were used to measure associations and as well for interpretation. Results: Magnitude of medication administration error was 41.7%. Wrong time and wrong documentation accounted for 58.4% and 26.7% of medication administration errors respectively. 26.1% nurses reported occurrence of error before current study through interview. From which, 58.3% of nurses did not recorded on patient folder and more than four-fifth did not reported errors to concerned bodies. Factors that significantly associated with occurrence of medication administration error were not using pocket books during medication administration, [AOR=2.3, 95%CI (1.043, 5.172)], nurses with bachelor degree qualification level [AOR=3.714, 95%CI (1.38, 9.98)], and working in Emergency unit [AOR= 6.172, 95%CI (1.728, 22.042) and ICU units [AOR=5.994, 95%CI (1.264, 28.423)]. Conclusion: Medication administration error was high among nurses working in public hospitals of Harari regional state. Wrong time and wrong documentation were main contributors to these errors. Not using pocket books for reference during medication administration, bachelor level of qualification, working in Emergency and Intensive Care Units were factors independently associated with medication administration error. The low habit of reporting errors also makes xii medication administration as error prone activity in the hospital. This calls for immediate attention to take corrective actions before adverse consequences occur