Factors Associated With Medication Errors Among Health Workers In University College Hospital, Nigeria

A descriptive survey which purposefully selected respondents from the registered nurses and pharmacists working in the study center. A total number of 274 nurses and 59 pharmacists participated in the study (n=333). Reliability coefficient was 0.6; Chi square and T-Test were applied to test hypotheses at α = 0.05 level of significance. All the respondents (n=333) indicated that exhaustion due to work pressure was the commonest cause of errors while 181 (66%) of nurses and 9 (15.2%) of pharmacists were previously involved in medication errors (MEs). Pharmacists ranked wrong labeling of patients’ name (23.7%) as the most common type of dispensing errors (Des) while overdose (30%) was the commonest among nurses. There was no significant difference between the attitudes of nurses and pharmacists to MEs (p=.044) but there was a significant difference between the rates of occurrence of MEs between nurses and pharmacists (p=.000). Respondents further suggested double checking of prescription (32.2%) and updating knowledge of pharmacology (16.9%) as strategies for reducing MEs. 138 words