The Relationship Between Alarm Fatigue and Medical Error Tendency in Intensive Care Unit Nurses: The Mediating Affect of Role Overload.

BACKGROUND

Investigating all the reasons that may create a tendency for medical errors in interdisciplinary work due to critical patient care and monitoring in intensive care units is important for reliable health service delivery.

AIM

The primary purpose of this study was to determine the alarm fatigue levels of intensive care nurses, examine the effect of this fatigue on the tendency to make medical errors and determine the mediating role of role overload in the relationship between the two concepts.

STUDY DESIGN

This cross-sectional survey study included 250 intensive care nurses from Ordu. In addition to the personal information form, the 'Nurses Alarm Fatigue Scale', 'Nurses Medical Error Tendency Scale' and 'Role overload Scale' were used in the study. After verifying the data's validity and reliability, the SPSS and AMOS package programs were used for the analyses.

RESULTS

The increase in the level of alarm fatigue caused an increase in role overload by 33% and a 9% effect on medical error tendency. The increase in role overload caused a 9% increase in nurses' tendency to medical errors. In addition, it was revealed that their total effect on each other was 11%. There was a positive correlation between role overload, alarm fatigue and medical error tendency, and this relationship was statistically significant.

CONCLUSION

This research will help us develop effective strategies by better understanding the factors that may lead to medical error tendencies among intensive care nurses responsible for the care of critically ill patients. Although it is not easy to solve alarm fatigue because the alarm response that is not acted upon or the alarm response is impaired is caused by technical, clinician and organisational factors, studies have attempted to be analytical.

RELEVANCE TO CLINICAL PRACTICE

Considering alert fatigue and role overload in reducing the propensity of critical care nurses to make medical errors can significantly increase the accuracy and integrity of patient care and improve outcomes.