ABSTRACT

Background: Occurrence of nursing error in Intensive care units, due to the particular conditions of patients is vital and directly linked to patients’ health and treatment process as well. Identification of error predisposing factors, therefore, is crucial from perspective of in-service nurses delivering services at intensive care units.

Methods: This was a descriptive-analytical study. Samples included 200 in-service nurses who were delivering services at Intensive care units in selected hospitals of Tabriz, Iran. The participants were selected through census method. The study was carried out in 2012 and sampling lasted for 35 days. The researchers used a self-made questionnaire which had been designed to measure the demographic aspects together with four dimensions of nursing errors. In total, 163 questionnaires were collected and fed into SPSS v.18 for processing.

Results: Results revealed that in the environmental conditions dimension item of "patient and their relatives inappropriate behavior" (46%), in the management dimension "low ratio of nurses to patients" (72.4%) in skills and education of nursing staff dimension “lack of experienced personnel in intensive  care unit" (39.9%), and in the coordination team dimension, item of inappropriate division of work and tasks by head nurses" (38%) were noted as the most important predisposing factors in four dimensions.

Conclusion: As the management dimension, in this study, was noted as the most error predisposing factor among other three factors, it is likely that, improvement of management methods can be effective in reducing the incidence of these errors.

Key words: Predisposing Factors, Nursing Errors, Intensive Care Units