Barriers To Disclosure Of Nursing Practice Errors As Perceived By Nurses.

Background: Patient safety is a concern worldwide and is a significant challenge facing
healthcare systems today. Nursing errors have always been a serious, inevitable threat to patients’
safety. Reporting errors is fundamental to error prevention that can increase the rate of survival
among patients in hospitals. It is important to detect nursing barriers for not disclosing these
errors. Aim: The current study explores nurses' perception of barriers against disclosing nursing
practice errors. Subjects and Methods: A descriptive exploratory design was utilized. The study
was conducted at New Kaser El-Aini Teaching Hospital and El Manial Kebli Hospital.
Convenient samples of 285 nurses worked in ICUs and 335 nurses worked in inpatient units. For
the purpose of this study, questionnaire for nurses was adopted and utilized that consist of two
parts: the first part was related to the nurse personal characteristics, the second part assess the
nurses perception of the different barriers. Results: showed that the study sample agreed with
high percentage for different dimensions and related barriers against error disclosure as fear,
ineffective communication and misunderstanding, organization, team work and workload
dimensions related barriers. The current study showed statistically significant difference between
dimensions related barriers and the personal characteristics of the study sample as gender,
educational background, working unit, age and years of experience. Recommendations:
Decrease staff fears related to disclosure through modifying the culture of blaming and
punishment by the organization. Also the study recommended establishing simple guidelines and
procedure for reporting error.