Nurses' experiences and perspectives on medication safety practices: an explorative qualitative study

Aim To explore nurses' experiences with and perspectives on preventing medication administration errors. Background Insight into nurses' experiences with and perspectives on preventing medication administration errors is important and can be utilised to tailor and implement safety practices. Methods A qualitative interview study of 20 nurses in an academic medical centre was conducted between March and December of 2011. Results Three themes emerged from this study: (1) nurses' roles and responsibilities in medication safety: aside from safe preparation and administration, the clinical reasoning of nurses is essential for medication safety; (2) nurses' ability to work safely: knowledge of risks and nurses' work circumstances influence their ability to work safely; and (3) nurses' acceptance of safety practices: advantages, feasibility and appropriateness are important incentives for acceptance of a safety practice. Conclusions Nurses' experiences coincide with the assumption that they are in a pre-eminent position to enable safe medication management; however, their ability to adequately perform this role depends on sufficient knowledge to assess the risks of medication administration and on the circumstances in which they work. Implications for nursing management Safe medication management requires a learning climate and professional practice environment that enables further development of professional nursing skills and knowledge.