Characteristics and evidence of nursing scientific production for medication errors at the hospital environment

Resumo

This study aimed to identify the characteristics of nurses’ publications about medication errors. It was used an Integrative methodology review covering January 2005 to October 2010 with "medication errors" and "nursing" descriptors and it was also collected data from electronic databases via “Capes Portal”. Results show four categories, the conduct of health professionals in medication errors, types and rates of errors, medication system weaknesses, and barriers to error. Discussion of the prevalent practice was not to notify the error. The prevalent error type was administration and error rates which ranged from 14.8 to 56.7%. Ilegible handwriting, communication failures among professionals, and lack of technical knowledge were weaknesses. Among the barriers, the civility from patient, nurses and technology were evident. Advances in researches for testing barriers were found and some gaps were apparent concerning lack of study that address pharmacodynamics or pharmacokinetic aspects of drugs involved in errors.