Period prevalence and reporting rate of medication errors among nurses in Iran: A systematic review and meta-analysis.

Objective: To estimate the 1-year period prevalence of medication errors and the reporting rate to nurse managers among nurses working in hospitals in Iran.

Background: Medication errors are one of the main factors affecting the quality of hospital services and reducing patient safety in health care systems.

Methods: A literature search from Iranian and international scientific databases was developed to find relevant studies. Meta-regression was used to identify which characteristics may have a confounding effect on the pooled prevalence estimates.

Results: Based on the final 22 studies with 3556 samples, the overall estimated 1-year period prevalence of medication errors and its reporting rate to nurse managers among nurses were 53% (95% confidence interval, 41%-60%) and 36% (95% confidence interval, 23%-50%), respectively. The meta-regression analyses indicated that the sex (female/male) ratio was a statistically significant predictor of the prevalence of medication errors (p < .05), but not of the prevalence of reporting medication errors to nurse managers.

Conclusions: The period prevalence of medication errors among nurses working in hospitals was high in Iran, whereas its reporting rate to nurse managers was low. Conclusions: Continuous training programmes are required to reduce and prevent medication errors among nursing staff and to improve the reporting rate to nurse managers in in Iran.