Abstract
Background: Nurse related adverse events refer to any event leading to the injury of a patient. Adverse events have been a significant and worrying challenge within nursing practice both nationally and internationally. Involvement of nurses in adverse events who in most cases are rarely to blame, results in feelings of exhaustion, being emotionally drained, hospitals experiencing high nurse turnover and subsequent negative effects on the nursing care rendered. Most of the involved nurses struggle in isolation personally and professionally with a negative impact on colleagues, patients and the organizations. Existing literature has indicated that no current research demonstrating the nurse’s experiences regarding adverse events exists in this specific public hospital.
Purpose: The purpose of this study was to explore and describe the experiences of the nurses regarding adverse events in this public hospital in Gauteng in order to develop recommendations to improve these experiences.
Methodology: A qualitative, explorative, descriptive and contextual research design was used. Data was collected by means of in-depth semi structured individual interviews, focus group interviews and the documentation of naïve sketches from a purposive sample of professional nurses, enrolled nurses and enrolled nursing assistants . Data was analyzed using Tesch’s open coding protocol of qualitative data analysis. Lincoln and Guba’s four principles were applied to ensure trustworthiness.
Results: The findings of the study revealed one central theme reflecting that the participants experienced their involvement in nurse related adverse events negatively. Three main themes emerged namely negative emotional experiences, negative social experiences and inappropriate management experiences...