International Journal of Nursing

Determination of Nursing Students’ Medical Errors
FatmaBirgili RN, PhD Melek Şahin

Abstract
Objective: This research aims to determine the nursing students’ medical errors. Methods: The research is a descriptive study carried out with 450 nursing students studying in the 3rd and 4th grades in the Department of Nursing in the Faculty of Health Sciences from 15 July to 15 March, 2018. Data were collected using “The Medical Error Tendency Scale in Nursing” (METS). Results: The mean age range of the students who participated in the study is 21±1.36 age. 74.4% of the students are females and 52.7% of them are third year students. 21.8% of the nursing students stated that they made medical errors during the clinical practices and 68.4% of them reported the errors to the charge nurse. It was determined that the total average scores the nursing students got from the METS were 4.34±0.48 and the tendencies of nurses to commit medical errors were low. It was also revealed that the highest average score of the nurses related to the sub-scales (4.44±0.58) was about prevention of falls and the lowest average score was related to patient monitoring and equipment security (4.04±0.65). Conclusions: It is revealed that student nurses have low levels of making medical errors; however, due to the lack of establishing patient safety culture and student nurses’ reservations about reporting the medical errors, it should be considered that they can answer the questions positively.

Full Text: PDF     DOI: 10.15640/ijn.v6n1a4