Studying Perceptual Differences of ER Medical Errors among Novice/Experienced Nurses for the Identification of Training Interventions

• Main Authors: Pei-ChiehHu, 胡沛婕
• Other Authors: Yu-Hsiu Hung
• Format: Others
• Language: en_US
• Published: 2016
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/ub2ryn

碩士 === 國立成功大學 === 工業設計學系 === 104 === Unlike in other departments, professionally trained medical staff in emergency departments of large-scale hospitals are more prone to medical errors. Among medical staff, novice nurses bear a higher risk of medical errors. According to literature reviews, over half of medical errors are preventable human errors. In regard to this, training is by far one of the most effective ways to prevent human errors from occurring. Therefore, this study attempted to explore novice and experienced nurses’ views toward different kinds of medical errors and analyzed, summarized, and discussed differences in the degree of awareness among the two groups. By adopting different points of view and exploring possibilities, this study hoped to pinpoint key areas of some of the most common errors, thus providing suggestions for future pre-employment training for improvement. Using a qualitative research approach, the study recruited 34 nurses from the emergency departments of three teaching hospitals to complete semi-structured interviews. All participants were female, 15 were experienced nurses (mean age=34, SD=5.06, average years of experience=5 or above), 19 were novice nurses (mean age=24, SD=3, average years of experience=6 to 12 months). The results showed a total of 130 medical errors classified into four types: 50 medication errors (48.5%), 29 checkup/collection errors (28.2%), 22 equipment-related errors (21.4%), and 2 other errors (1.9%). The research results showed no significant difference between experienced and novice nurses regarding the degree of awareness about medication errors. Both groups unanimously agreed that medication errors committed by novice nurses were mainly caused by skill-based behavior and the presence of psychological precursors. Likewise, there was no significant difference between experienced and novice nurses regarding the degree of awareness about checkup/collection errors. Both groups unanimously agreed that checkup/collection errors were mainly caused by skill-based behavior, rule-based behavior, and the presence of psychological precursors. However, the degree of awareness among experienced and novice nurses about equipment-related errors varied. Experienced nurses believed that these errors were primarily caused by skill-based and rule-based behaviors, while novice nurses believed that they were caused by skill-based and knowledge-based behaviors. Regarding other errors that did not fall into any of the above classifications, since only novice nurses mentioned these errors, no comparison between the degrees of awareness could be made. Novice nurses believed that these kinds of errors were caused by skill-based behavior, rule-based behavior, and knowledge-based behavior. This study has described the corresponding training strategies, content, and approaches according to different categories of medical errors, in the hopes of improving cooperation between experienced and novice nurses, and effectively avoiding medical errors via pre-employment training.