A. Samundeeswari et al JMSCR Volume 06 Issue 03 March 2018 Page 269 JMSCR Vol||06||Issue||03||Page 269-274||March 2018 Nurses Knowledge on Prevention of Medication Error Authors A. Samundeeswari, G. Muthamilselvi Vinayaka Missions College of Nursing, AVMC, Puducherry Abstract Nurses are playing a vital role in caring the sick and wounded people. One of the important aspect in caring the patient is administration of medication to the patient. While caring patient, nurses must follow ten rights in order to safeguard themselves from the legal liabilities. Though nurses are following them, they must be aware about the different forms of medication error and its consequences. The investigator aimed to assess the nurse’s knowledge on prevention of medication errors. A quantitative approach with descriptive survey design adopted for this study. Total of 50 nurses participated which includes 41 junior level nurses and 9 ward-in-charges. The study revealed that nurses had poor knowledge on prevention of medication error. Demographic variable like education had the association with nurse’s knowledge on prevention of medication error. Keywords: Nurses, Medication error, prevention, Knowledge. Introduction Safety during patient hospitalization consists of one of the patient rights and also the first priority of the health care professionals. Errors that occur during the application of medical/nursing interventions or patient hospitalization have capture the health researcher’s attention over the last decade. Errors appearing in the hospital settings concern a lot of incidents like patient falls, use of wrong equipment, bed or pressure sores, hospital acquired infections, improper management of clinical situations and medication errors. Medication error defined as, any preventable event that may cause or lead to inappropriate medication used for patient and causes potential harm to the clients [1,2] . Medication errors are well-known problem in hospitals. Studies have shown that medication errors and adverse drug reactions (ADRs) are one of the main causes for adverse events in hospitals leading to disability and death. This constitutes up to 6.5% of hospital admission [3,4,5,6,7] . Every year between 44,000 and 98,000 individuals die in hospitals due to medical errors [8]. It has been reported that this is only part of the problem, as thousands of other patients are adversely affected by medical errors or barely avoid injuries that are non-fatal [9]. These medical errors not only cost the loss of lives, but carry a financial burden that is estimated to be in a range of $17 billion to $29 billion annually. Additionally, there are physical and psychological pain and suffering related to these medication errors [8]. Another consequence is that medical errors diminish trust and satisfaction of the clients in the healthcare system and in healthcare professionals [8]. www.jmscr.igmpublication.org Impact Factor (SJIF): 6.379 Index Copernicus Value: 71.58 ISSN (e)-2347-176x ISSN (p) 2455-0450 DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.18535/jmscr/v6i3.45