Errors and Near-miss Errors Encountered by Nursing Students in Clinical Settings in Governmental Universities, Khartoum State (2018)

Abstract

Background: Identifying and analyzing the occurrence and sort of student clinical errors which will allow for early detection of problems and offer chance for system evaluation and improvement. This study intended to explain the types of errors along with near-miss errors encountered by nursing students in clinical settings. Methods: This descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted at five recognized governmental universities in Khartoum State and included 470 nursing students in their fourth year (2017–2018)who met the selection criteria of the study. A full-converge sampling method was used and data were first collected by the researcher using published self-administered survey and then analyzed.
 Results: Initially, the study included 519 nursing students but only 470 of them responded(at a rate of 90.5%).The responses showed that while one-third of them, that is, 162(34.5%) students, had never encountered an error, 99(21.1%), 79 (16.8%), 71 (15.1%), 46(9.8%), and 13(2.8%) of them encountered errors with respect to needle stick, medical administration, omission of treatment, and wrong treatment, respectively. Regarding the near-miss errors encountered by the respondents, almost half, that is, 202(43%)of them had never encountered a near-miss errors, while 112(23.8%), 106(22.6%), 18(3.8%),17(3.6%), and 15(3.2%) of them encountered near-miss errors with respect to medication administration, omission of treatment, wrong patient, providing wrong treatment and others such as improper bedrail used, did not follow sterile precautions respectively. Conclusion: This study concluded that errors and near-miss errors exist and that awareness on clinical errors and near-misses need to be raised and strategies be developed for error management.
 Keywords: errors, near-miss errors, nursing students, clinical setting, nursing errors