Iran Journal of Nursing

 Background & Aim: Working errors are inevitable in every profession including health care professions, but in nursing it is of greater importance, because of its inalienable damages to patients. Study of predisposing factors of these errors is the first step to control and decrease errors during nursing care. The purpose of this study was to survey predisposing causes of working errors in nursing cares from perspectives of nurses and their managers and also to examine the importance of different predisposing domains in different wards in year 2007.

  Material & Method: This research is a descriptive study in which cluster random sampling method was used. Ninety six nurses and nursing managers from 3 selected educational hospitals in Tehran participated in this study. Data were collected by a questionnaire and analyzed by descriptive and inferential statistics.

 Results: From perspective of nurses and nursing managers, different factors in domains of management, environment, and care and nursing were considered as predisposing factors to nursing errors. Also, there were a statistically significant difference between wards in terms of predisposing causes of working errors (P<0.001).

 Conclusion: Regarding impossibility of absolute suppression of nursing errors, struggle for controlling and decreasing nursing errors depends on using a systematic approach with emphasis on management, environment, care and nursing domains when assessing predisposing factors and planning appropriate intervention.