Perceptions on Medication Administration Errors (MAEs) among nurses at a tertiary government hospital

Aim: To identify the nurses' perceptions on the occurrence of Medication Administration Errors (MAEs) and barriers to reporting using the MAE Reporting Survey. Background: MAEs is a serious public health threat that causes patient injury, death, and results to expensive health care. Methods: Descriptive statistical analysis. Results: The most frequent reasons for MAEs according to the nurses were physicians' medication orders are not legible (4.67 f 1.21) and unit staffing levels are inadequate (4.63 f 1.45). The most frequent reason for unreported MAEs were when med errors occur, nursing administration focuses on the individual rather than looking at the systems as a potential cause of the error (4.95 f 4.33) and nurses could be blamed if something happens to the patient as a result of the medication error (4.29 f 1.48). The highest prevalent non-IV related MAEs included wrong time of administration (M = 3.02 f 2.37) and medication administered after the order to discontinue has been written (M = 2.60 f 2.11), both with 0-20 % of reported non-IV MAEs. The highest prevalent IV related MAEs included wrong time of administration (M = 2.76 f 2.29) and medication administered after the order to discontinue has been written (M = 2.45 f 2.01). More than half (n = 95, % = 54.29) of the respondents stated that 0-20 % of all types of medication errors, including IV and non-IV medication errors are reported. Conclusions: The findings supported the notion that nurses perceive low percentages of MAEs reporting.