Rural nurses' views of error reporting/disclosure

Aims: The objective of this presentation is to discuss rural nurses' views of reporting/disclosure of a hypothetical medication error. Reference will be made to preliminary results of data collected for a PhD study in this area.

Background: Nurses work at the front line of health services, often in situations where active error occurs. The knowledge of safety climate and views of reporting a[ld disclosure of error amongst nurses working in rural clinical settings is limited.

Method: Data for the study was collected through inviting nurses working in rural worksites in Tasmania to complete an online survey. Worksites included hospitals, multipurpose services, residential aged care, community nursing, general practice and other areas such as mental health settings. Both statistical analysis and fuzzy set analysis of the data will be undertaken for this study. The survey questions combined the Safety Attitudes Questionnaire (SAQ) with a hypothetical medication error scenario with three levels of harm to the patient (severe, moderate and nil harm), as well as collecting some demographic information. The study received ethics approval from the Tasmanian Human Research Ethics Committee.