Medical Error Attitudes of Nurses Working in Surgical Clinics and Affecting Factors

Abstract

This study was carried out in a descriptive and cross-sectional form to determine the medical error attitudes of nurses working in the surgical clinics of a public hospital. The population of the research consists of 900 nurses working in the surgical clinics of a public hospital in Istanbul, and the sample consists of 308 nurses who voluntarily agreed to participate in the research. “Questionnaire Form” which include nurses' socio-demographic and working characteristics and “Medical Error Attitude Scale” were used as data collection tools. The data were analyzed using the SPSS 23.0 package program with frequency, percentage, mean, standard deviation, independent student t-test, One-way ANOVA test and Tukey tests. The study determined that 12.7% of the nurses made a medical error during their professional working period, and 24.4% had witnessed a medical error before. The total mean score of the "Medical Error Attitude Scale" of the nurses was 2.25±0.2 and it was evaluated as negative. It was determined that the highest score was taken from “the perception of medical errors” sub-dimension (3.08±0.9) and the lowest score was taken from the “the approach to medical errors” sub-dimension (2.08±0.4) of the sub-dimensions of the scale. It was determined that the mean medical error attitude total score of the nurses who were single nurses who worked on the day shift and had management duties was significantly higher. The results reveal that health institutions must increase their studies on patient safety to raise awareness of nurses against medical errors, identify the causes of malpractice and prevent them.