Factors Affecting Incident Reporting by Registered Nurses: The Relationship of Perceptions of the Environment for Reporting Errors, Knowledge of the Nursing Practice Act, and Demographics on Intent to Report Errors

Patient safety has assumed an international focus. In the past, the focus on detecting and preventing errors was up to the individual clinician, often the registered nurse. With impetus from the Institute of Medicine and other national agencies, a shift to emphasis on systems and processes and near miss and error reporting has occurred. Information from caregiver reporting has taken on new importance. This study was conducted to explore nurses' willingness to report errors of varying degrees of severity and the factors that impacted that intent. Registered nurses were selected randomly from the Texas Board of Nurse Examiners' roster and surveyed regarding perceptions of the environment for reporting, perceptions of reasons for not reporting, knowledge of the nursing practice act, and demographic variables. A majority of nurses were willing to report all levels of errors. Primary position, reasons for not reporting, and years since initial licensure were predictors of intent to report incidents with no injury and those with minimal injury. All but four nurses (99%) indicated that they would report incidents resulting in moderate to severe injury or death.

Keywords: barriers, error reporting, environment, incident reporting