Objective:

To verify the association between interruptions and errors of medication in doses prepared and administered by nursing professionals in inpatient units of medical clinic of two public hospitals in Distrito Federal, Brazil.

Methodology:

Exploratory study, of transverse delineation and quantitative character, performed in two public hospitals in Distrito Federal, Brazil. The sample was by convenience, being eight professionals at the Hospital 1 and eighteen professionals at the Hospital 2. Data were collected from direct observation and application of questionnaire and instrument for identifying the factors of risk for medication errors. There were considered significant results with values of p < 0.05 and established confidence index was 95 %.

Results:

In both hospitals it was verified a profile mostly of nursing technicians (H1 = 100 %; H2 = 94.4 %), female (H1 = 75 %; H2 = 88.1 %) and older than 30 years old (H1 = 75 %; H2 = 61 %). There were observed 899 dose in H1 and H2, resulting in 921 and 648 errors respectively, of which 464 (53.6 %) in the H1 and 118 (24.4 %) in the H2 were directly related to interruptions at work. Each observed dose suffered approximately 1,7 errors and there were about 26 (H1) and 16.2 (H2) errors per hour.

Conclusion:

There is a strong association between interruptions in the work of the nursing team and errors of medication in the inpatient units studied, characterizing the interruptions as an important factor of risk.

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