Aim: This empirical research aimed to identify relationships between nurses' unit tenure, nursing unit tenure diversity and medication errors.
Background: Research examining medication errors has paid little attention to the effects of multilevel precursors.
Method: In total, 567 registered nurses (from 36 nursing units) completed a survey questionnaire at a university hospital during September 2012. Of these, 334 (completed by nurses from 22 nursing units) were eligible for multilevel analysis.
Results: The average frequency of self-reported medication errors per registered nurse in the preceding 6 months was 0.98. Multilevel analysis showed that medication errors were significantly negatively associated with nurses' unit tenure at individual level (B = -0.64, P = 0.002) and nursing unit tenure diversity at unit level (B = -0.69, P < 0.001). Furthermore, nursing unit tenure diversity moderated the relationship between nurses' unit tenure and medication errors (B = 0.48, P = 0.012).
Conclusion: This study provided evidence indicating that novice nurses made a higher number of medication errors relative to experienced nurses, and that including a mixture of novice and experienced nurses in a nursing unit attenuated novice nurses' medication errors.
Implications for nursing management: The development of staffing strategies that enhance nursing unit tenure diversity is required.
Keywords: medication error; multilevel analysis; nurse; nursing unit; tenure diversity.
© 2016 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.