Abstract
Purpose: The aim of this study was to investigate nurses' perception of coworkers' responses to their errors and how these are associated with nurses' recognition.
Method: A self-administered questionnaire was distributed to nurses at three hospitals. The questionnaire contained the most serious error they felt personally that they had made over their career, perceived response or no response from coworkers, and nurses' recognition such as pleasant, unpleasant, or nothing felt to each response. The association between each response from coworkers and nurses' recognition was calculated. In addition, logistic regression models were used to identify the difference in the relevance by the degree of patient harm.
Results: Most of the nurses perceived supportive responses by receiving verbal advice from colleagues, senior staff, or chief nurses, and each of these responses was rated as being pleasant. Not perceiving “Behave as usual by senior staff or chief nurses” and “Apperceive my feeling by chief nurses” were related to unpleasant feeling. All of the non-supportive responses were associated with unpleasant feeling.
Conclusions: Coworkers' responses to nurses' errors could be divided into two types according to nurses' recognition of having a pleasant or unpleasant feeling. It is necessary to educate nurses about providing support for other nurses who make errors.
