Table 4.

Underreporting of Medication Administration Errors

Statements	N	%
Nurses do not agree with hospital’s definition of a medication error	205	(60.2%)
Nurses do not recognize an error occurred	215	(63.1%)
Filling out an incident report for a medication error takes too much time	212	(62.3%)
Contacting the physician about a medication error takes too much time	215	(63.3%)
Medication error is not clearly defined	224	(65.9%)
Nurses may not think the error is important enough to be reported	231	(67.8%)
Nurses believe that other nurses will think they are incompetent if they make medication errors	246	(72.3%)
The patient or family might develop a negative attitude toward the nurse, or may sue the nurse if a medication error is reported	226	(66.3%)
The expectation that medications be given exactly as ordered is unrealistic	208	(61.1%)
Nurses are afraid the physician will reprimand them for the medication error	203	(64.9%)
Nurses fear adverse consequences from reporting medication errors	248	(72.9%)
The response by nursing administration does not match the severity of the error	235	(69.2%)
Nurses could be blamed if something happens to the patient as a result of the medication error	250	(73.5%)
No positive feedback is given for passing medications correctly	243	(71.4%)
Too much emphasis is placed on med errors as a measure of the quality of nursing care provided	251	(72.8%)
When med errors occur, nursing administration focuses on the individual rather than looking at the systems as a potential cause of the error	252	(74.1%)