Medication errors lead to fear, sadness, guilt among health care staff

Medication administration errors led to negative feelings of guilt, fear and self-blame, according to a study published in BMC Health Services Research.

However, emotional support and guidance from supervisors and colleagues can mitigate some of the negative effects of these errors on a health care worker’s mental health.

“Our findings suggest appropriate guidance and support from fellow staff members could help health care staff to handle the situation effectively,” Sanu Mahat, MPH, a doctoral researcher from the department of nursing science at University of Eastern Finland, and colleagues wrote. “Therefore, it should be paramount to tailor appropriate support from persons in-charge and colleagues and to promote an open culture where it is understood. Errors can impair mental health of those who are involved, hence, the system triggers surrounding such errors need to be understood and prevented.”

In a retrospective study using both text mining and qualitative descriptions, Mahat and colleagues examined the negative responses of health care staff from 72,390 medication administration error incidents in Wales and England in 2016 from the National Reporting and Learning System database, as well as the responses of supervisors and colleagues to the incident. In the database, 93 of the reports included negative responses to errors.

Mahat and colleagues found that the main emotions expressed by health care staff in medication administration error incidents were: worry, upset, agitation, faulty, sorry, concerned, stressed and distress. They then categorized these emotions into four categories: fear, upset, sadness and guilt.

However, guidance and support from colleagues alleviated some of the negative feelings that medication administration error-makers experience, according to the researchers.

“The negative feelings expressed by health care staff after medication administration errors identified in this study could provide the basis for designing an intervention study to support emotionally affected staff in health care institutions,” Mahat and colleagues wrote.

They added, “It could be helpful to design a support program [that] recognizes the importance of expressed emotion and its consequences for internationalizing a sense of self-blame and victimhood and the long-term repercussions this might have for the mental health and well-being of the health workforce.”