Nurses’ Perceptions of the Causes of Medication Errors: An Integrative Literature Review

Most nurses first hear the phrase “medication error” during their basic professional education. Concern for jeopardizing patient safety by committing a medication error traditionally has been instilled deeply into student nurses. Medication errors are a very real and frightening event in health care, and they deserve the concern associated with them. A 2000 report by the Institute of Medicine (IOM), which indicated 44,000-98,000 people die each year in hospitals due to medical errors, focused national attention on patient safety and awareness of potential harm (Kohn, Corrigan, & Donaldson, 2000). Before the IOM publication To Err is Human: Building a Safer Health System (Kohn et al., 2000), little published research existed regarding medication errors in nursing. A Cumulative Index of Nursing and Allied Health Literature (CINAHL) search revealed only five research articles related to nursing and medication errors from 1995 to 1999. However, since the IOM’s report, numerous studies have explored best practices for safer medication administration. Studies have evaluated medication reconciliation (Kramer et al., 2007; Nester & Hale, 2002; Varkey et al., 2007), the use of computerized physician order entry, (George & Austin-Bishop, 2003), the use of medication protocols (Manias, Aitken, & Dunning, 2005), improvement of nursing students’ math skills in order to reduce medication errors (Wright, 2004), and discussions of barriers to medication error reporting (Madegowda, Hill, & Anderson, 2007; Mayo & Duncan, 2004; Stetina, Groves, & Pafford, 2005; Ulanimo, O’Leary-Kelley, & Connolly, 2007).