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.
Keywords: medication errors; nurses; nursing process; quality improvement; safety management.
© 2014 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.