Factors impeding nurses from reporting adverse events.
OBJECTIVE
To explore the reasons why Greek nurses are reluctant to report adverse events.


BACKGROUND
This study provides an understanding of why nurses fail to report adverse events so that we can introduce systems and develop cultures, which make this easier.


METHODS
An exploratory study using the Adverse Events Questionnaire, which was administered to 214 nurses in 14 major Athens hospitals, comprising university as well as tertiary hospitals.


RESULTS
Five main reasons for not reporting were identified. They include the fear of the press, the licensing board, the difficulty in handling an adverse event, confidence about bringing up adverse events and the complaints by patients. Moreover, clustering variables into homogeneous sets, three latent variables were extracted. They include procedures, culture and dishonour, social control, workload and tradition.


CONCLUSIONS
Nurses' impeding factors for bringing up adverse events may be projected not only by cultural aspects such as professional, national and organizational cultures but also by healthcare practice structural issues such as safety systems, rules and procedures, and relevant acts and regulations.


CONCLUSIONS
Nursing management should change management rules and establish systems so that nurses work in a blame-free culture, which examines system factors as causes of error rather than individuals.
Moumtzoglou
Anastasius
A
Management of HealthCare Units, P. & A. Kyriakou' Childrens Hospital, 11527 Athens, Greece. anas1@hol.gr
D001291:Attitude of Health Personnel; D004993:Ethics, Nursing; D006115:Greece; D019538:Health Care Surveys; D006305:Health Status Indicators; D006801:Humans; D009718:Nurse Administrators; D024802:Nurse's Role; D009729:Nursing / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D009745:Nursing, Supervisory / Q000941:ethics / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D005791:Patient Care / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D025341:Principal Component Analysis; D012449:Safety / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D012941:Social Responsibility; D013223:Statistics as Topic; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D014342:Truth Disclosure