Introduction: Nurses have important role and responsibility in medication administration. Nurse practice involves legal, ethical and professional aspects. They are the final person to check and see if the medication is correctly prescribed and dispensed before administration. Medication errors are the most common adverse event in patient safety. Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to present the problem of common medication errors and find out the most frequent causes for medication errors, as well as present measures for their prevention. Methods: We used the review of literature on medication errors. English scientific and professional literature was searched for in the following databases: CINAHL with full text, MEDLINE, Google Scholar, Science Direct, Wiley Online Library and Cochrane Library. We searched for Slovene literature with COBIB.SI. Searching for suitable literature lasted from January to September 2020. Results: The most common medication errors are: wrong medication, wrong dose, omission error, wrong time and wrong patient. The most frequent causes for medication errors are: interruption or distraction when preparing or administering medication, fatigue resulted from hard work, increased workload, shortage of personnel and lack of pharmacological knowledge. Factors of prevention are: electronic prescribing, using information technology, using safety apps and programs, presence of clinical pharmacist in wards, double checking, non-judgmental work environment, developing a safety culture, separating medication preparation rooms and improving knowledge, attitudes, and practice of nurses in medication administration and pharmacology. Discussion and conclusion: Medication errors are common throughout healthcare and result in significant impact on the well-being of patients and financial cost. Reporting medication errors is crucial for detection and understanding the nature and sources of medication errors. Reporting is the key for researching and applying evidence-based prevention strategies that can decrease medication errors and improve patient safety.
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