Effect of Professionalism Level on Tendency to Make Medical Errors in Nurses

AIM: The aim of the present study was to examine the relationship between the occupational professionalism level of hospital nurses and their tendency to make medical errors. This was a descriptive, correlational, and cross-sectional study. METHOD: The study was conducted between June 2013 and January 2015 in four hospitals providing general diagnosis, treatment, and care services. Four hundred fifty-nine nurses were included in the study. A questionnaire including a Personal Information Form, Professional Manner in Occupation Inventory, and Tendency to Medical Error in Nursing Scale was used to collect data. The study was approved by the hospitals’ ethics committees and institutions. Data were analyzed using Cronbach’s alpha analysis, frequency and percentage distributions, descriptive statistics, Pearson product-moment correlation coefficient, Dunnett T3 Post Hoc test, simple linear regression analysis, and t-test. RESULTS: Nurses’ occupational professionalism levels were high (M=137.06±15.23), and tendency to medical error levels were low (M=223.24±25.28). The majority of the nurses considered themselves quite professional and had not made any medical errors previously. There was a strong and highly significant negative relationship (p<0.001) between their occupational professionalism and their tendency to medical error. There was a difference between the occupational professionalism levels of nurses who made and did not make an occupational error (p<0.05), as well as significant differences between their tendency to medical error according to their perception of themselves as professionals (p<0.05). The occupational professionalism manner of the nurses was determined to be 30% effective in their tendency to medical error. CONCLUSION: The occupational professionalism manner of the nurses was found to negatively affect their tendency to medical error.