Medication Errors Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 1

Medication Errors - Research Paper Example Nurses make errors when giving medications in any of these stages with most of the errors being done at the prescribing stage. Most errors that nurses do however are the administering errors that make up 26-32% of total medication errors (Unver et al, 2012). The most unfortunate thing about these errors is that they have not been intercepted by anyone but recent technological advancements focus on reducing them. It can be argued that most nurses do not conduct these errors knowingly as there are many factors that contribute to the medication errors. One factor that makes nurses make errors in administering medication is having wrong patient details. It is essential for a nurse to have all the information about a patient as it determines things like the dosage he or he is given. A patient can conceal to a nurse that he or she is allergic to various medication and in the event the nurse prescribes to the patient a medicine that would trigger an allergic reaction, a case of medication errors arises (Lan et al, 2014). Environmental factors also make nurses make medication errors. A nurse is likely to make a mistake in administering medication in working environments that are not conducive. There are high chances that a nurse working in a cluttered environment will make a medication error when administering or preparing drugs. If a nurse is preparing a drug in a poorly lit place, he or she will certainly make a mistake. The extensive learning that nursing students go through when learning does not make them be in a position where they can recognize and differentiate every drug in the market and this makes them confuse some drugs. There are incidents where nurses mistake certain drugs that have the same packaging and recommend them to innocent patient (Cheragi et al, 2013). To help reduce this confusion, the companies making these medicines should differentiate the drugs as much as