Abstract
The purpose of this study was to examine medication errors and confirmation behavior of nurses' administering oral medications. The experiment was conducted on 63 nurses at a nursing lab where 16 beds were arranged, and the behavior of nurses was recorded by video camera. The nurses were instructed to give drugs following the prescriptions to the bedside of 6 simulated patients.
As a result, medication errors were observed with 32 nurses (50.8%), and dosage errors were the most frequent type of error. There are two types of confirmation, finger pointing and calling. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) was conducted to compare the numbers of medication errors among three groups, i.e. both confirmation group, either confirmation group, and neither confirmation group. Main effect of confirmation was significant during the preparation stage. Nurses who did one or both of the two types of confirmations made fewer errors than those who did neither. Main effect of confirmation was significant during the administration stage. Nurses who did both of the two types of confirmations made few errors than those who did one or neither.
