title: Nursing students' perspectives of the cause of medication errors.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Medication errors complicate up to half of inpatient stays and some have very serious consequences. To our knowledge, this is the first qualitative study of Iranian nursing students' perspectives of medication errors.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  To describe nursing students' perspectives of the causes of medication errors.
  
  
  METHODS
  Four focus groups were held with 24 nursing students from 4 different academic semesters in the nursing school in Tehran, between November 2011 and November 2012. Using a qualitative descriptive design, themes and subthemes were identified by content analysis.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Two main themes emerged from the data: "under-developed caring skills in medication management" and "unfinished learning of safe medication management", which was subdivided into "drifting between being worried and being careful", and "contextualising pharmacology education". All respondents felt that their education programmes were leaving them vulnerable to "drug errors" and cited incidents where patient safety had been jeopardised.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Nursing curricula need to increase investment in medicines management. If nursing students are to become competent, skilful and safe practitioners, their learning will require extensive support from their academic institutions and clinical mentors.
authors.affiliation: Department of Nursing, College of Human and Health Sciences, Swansea University, Swansea, United Kingdom; Faculty of Professional Studies, University of Nordland, Bodø, Norway.
authors.forename: Mojtaba
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Vaismoradi
authors.affiliation: Department of Nursing, College of Human and Health Sciences, Swansea University, Swansea, United Kingdom. Electronic address: s.e.jordan@swansea.ac.uk.
authors.forename: Sue
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Jordan
authors.affiliation: Department of Nursing Science, Kuopio Campus, University of Eastern Finland, Kuopio, Finland.
authors.forename: Hannele
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Turunen
authors.affiliation: Department of Nursing Science, Kuopio Campus, University of Eastern Finland, Kuopio, Finland; Faculty of Professional Studies, University of Nordland, Bodø, Norway.
authors.forename: Terese
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Bondas
mesh_terms: D001291:Attitude of Health Personnel; D017144:Focus Groups; D006801:Humans; D007492:Iran; D007858:Learning; D008508:Medication Errors; D061214:Patient Safety; D036301:Qualitative Research; D013338:Students, Nursing / Q000523:psychology*
keywords: Medication errors; Nursing; Patient safety; Qualitative research; Students