Attitudes and Barriers to Incident Reporting for Doctors and Nurses in a University Hospital’s Surgery Departments

Abstract

Purpose: To assess awareness and use of the incident reporting system among doctors and nurses working in hospital surgery departments and to identify the reasons inhibiting incident reporting. Methods: It was used a cross-sectional study design. The study population comprised doctors and nurses working in the surgery departments of a university’s adult and children’s hospital. A form including an incident reporting questionnaire was administered to the population. Results: Compared to doctors, nurses were more aware of the existence of the incident reporting system, filled out more incident reporting forms, and were more knowledgeable about where and how to access the forms and what to do once they were complete. The main barriers to incident reporting were a lack of feedback, completing the form being too time consuming, and the ward being busy. Conclusion: Nurses are more knowledgeable about incident reporting and report more incidents than doctors, who have more concerns. Doctors’ main reason for not reporting incidents is the ward being busy while for nurses it is a lack of feedback.