{"title":"Emotional Impact of Medication-Related Patient Safety Incidents on Canadian Hospital Pharmacists: A Mixed-Methods Study.","authors":"Mikaela Ney, Christine Landry, Melanie Trinacty, Mélanie Joanisse, Carolanne Caron","doi":"10.4212/cjhp.3401","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Background: </strong>Patient safety incidents are the third leading cause of death in Canada. These occurrences have negative effects on patients and on the well-being of health care professionals. They also lead to financial burdens on the health care system. Several organizations focus on minimizing patient safety incidents; however, an area requiring additional research is evaluating the emotional impact of medication-related patient safety incidents (MRPSIs) on Canadian hospital pharmacists. An MRPSI is a preventable, unintended outcome resulting from medication management rather than an underlying disease. The consequences may be no harm, temporary harm, prolonged hospital stay, disability, or death.</p><p><strong>Objectives: </strong>To describe the psychological burden on pharmacists after occurrence of an MRPSI and to identify supportive strategies.</p><p><strong>Methods: </strong>This mixed-methods study involved a voluntary survey of hospital pharmacists and structured individual interviews. Survey respondents scored their emotional distress on the Impact of Event Scale (IES), a validated self-reporting tool used to assess the impact of traumatic life events. Interviewees' responses were analyzed qualitatively.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>Of the 128 pharmacists who had experienced an MRPSI and submitted a complete survey response, 105 (82%) had a score above 8 on the IES, indicating that the MRPSI had an important impact. Commonly reported factors contributing to MRPSIs were heavy workload, interruptions, and inexperience. The most desired support strategies included talking to a colleague, compassionate notification of the event through management, and involvement in team debriefs.</p><p><strong>Conclusions: </strong>The emotional impact of MRPSIs as reported by Canadian hospital pharmacists is significant. Most participants felt that increased support is needed to overcome emotional burdens related to MRPSIs.</p>","PeriodicalId":94225,"journal":{"name":"The Canadian journal of hospital pharmacy","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0000,"publicationDate":"2023-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10522346/pdf/","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"The Canadian journal of hospital pharmacy","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.4212/cjhp.3401","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"2023/1/1 0:00:00","PubModel":"eCollection","JCR":"","JCRName":"","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Background: Patient safety incidents are the third leading cause of death in Canada. These occurrences have negative effects on patients and on the well-being of health care professionals. They also lead to financial burdens on the health care system. Several organizations focus on minimizing patient safety incidents; however, an area requiring additional research is evaluating the emotional impact of medication-related patient safety incidents (MRPSIs) on Canadian hospital pharmacists. An MRPSI is a preventable, unintended outcome resulting from medication management rather than an underlying disease. The consequences may be no harm, temporary harm, prolonged hospital stay, disability, or death.
Objectives: To describe the psychological burden on pharmacists after occurrence of an MRPSI and to identify supportive strategies.
Methods: This mixed-methods study involved a voluntary survey of hospital pharmacists and structured individual interviews. Survey respondents scored their emotional distress on the Impact of Event Scale (IES), a validated self-reporting tool used to assess the impact of traumatic life events. Interviewees' responses were analyzed qualitatively.
Results: Of the 128 pharmacists who had experienced an MRPSI and submitted a complete survey response, 105 (82%) had a score above 8 on the IES, indicating that the MRPSI had an important impact. Commonly reported factors contributing to MRPSIs were heavy workload, interruptions, and inexperience. The most desired support strategies included talking to a colleague, compassionate notification of the event through management, and involvement in team debriefs.
Conclusions: The emotional impact of MRPSIs as reported by Canadian hospital pharmacists is significant. Most participants felt that increased support is needed to overcome emotional burdens related to MRPSIs.