Medication Errors in Nursing: Causes, Impacts, and Prevention

Research Problem Statement
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Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
Background of the problem.........................................................................................................3
Research questions.......................................................................................................................3
LITERATURE RELEVANT TO THE PROBLEM........................................................................3
Some common medications and dispensary errors......................................................................3
Common causes of medication errors..........................................................................................4
Some negative impacts of medication and dispensary errors on patients’ health.......................4
Ways of reducing medication errors............................................................................................4
Strengths and weaknesses of studies relevant to the problem.....................................................5
Literature summary......................................................................................................................5
Impact of study on wider community..........................................................................................6
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................6
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................9
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INTRODUCTION
Medication errors in nursing can be defined as any preventable event that may lead to
inappropriate medication use as well as patient harm. This present study is going to discuss some
causes and reasons of increasing rate of such medication errors that are affecting patients’ health
to the great extent.
Background of the problem
Medication and dispensary errors are common that registered nurses experience and it
impacts on patients’ health, community and nurses’ profession in a negative manner (Ibrahim
and et.al., 2020). There are several common causes that lead to such medication problems such
as: poor communication, work load, lack of staff, alike sound of medicines and medical
abbreviation. Some common medication and dispensary errors that are affecting to wider
community are: improper dose, wrong time, and omission, giving drug to wrong patients or
administration errors. There are some ways by which medication errors can be reduced and
health of patients can be improved.
Research questions
1. What are some common medications and dispensary errors, registered nurses experience
the most?
2. What are common causes of medication errors?
3. What are some negative impacts of medication and dispensary errors on patients’ health?
4. How can medication clinical nursing errors can be reduced?
LITERATURE RELEVANT TO THE PROBLEM
Some common medications and dispensary errors
In regard to common medication errors that are becoming the reason of patients’ uncertain
death Gogazeh, (2020) said that prescription is the main medication error. Nurses sometimes
prescribe either too little or too much of a medication and patients do not receive the proper
treatment because of this. Tseng and et.al., (2018) argued and said that according to them the
main medication problem is all about administration in which nurses provide medication at the
incorrect time and to wrong patient because of work load and other reasons. Along with this
there are several other medication errors such as: wrong dose prescription because of alike
pronunciation and sound of drugs and medication preparation errors,
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