Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: O perating rooms are places where advanced technological tools and equipment are used, various surgical techniques and methods are applied, and teamwork and making the right decisions rapidly are important.[1,2] The operating room nurse works in an environment where basic life needs are determined according to medical and surgical principles and is responsible for the care of patients known to undergo physiologic changes.[3] Operating room nurses are the main health personnel in the implementation of care services in the operating room.Operating room nurses provide a wide range of services before, during, and after surgery.Operating room nurses must be excellent team members to ensure effectiveness and efficiency in patient care, which is their main responsibility.[4] Within the framework of legal understanding, all health professionals should perform their practices within the framework of the concept of "permissible risk" (complication).In this context, the health-care professional is obliged to take possible precautions before the application -except in emergencies.Even if negative consequences occur due to his/her action within the framework of the permissible risk, this situation does not impose an obligation on the employee.[5] This is due to the employee's compliance with the duty of care and attention.Lack of caution and carelessness is medically Operating rooms are places where advanced technological tools and equipment are used, various surgical techniques and methods are applied, and teamwork and making the right decisions quickly are important.Operating room nurses have important duties such as creating the necessary conditions for the environment where the operation will be performed, preparing the instruments and equipment before the operation, preparing the patient, performing and terminating the operation, and following the maintenance, cleaning, and sterilization of the instruments and equipment after the operation.Excessive workload, an insufficient number of staff, ambiguities in roles, long working hours, inadequate wages, working in a shift system, poor communication with health-care team members, and problems related to the management approach of managers reduce motivation and cause medical errors.The Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations defines malpractice as damage to the patient as a result of inappropriate and unethical behavior of health-care professionals and inadequate and negligent behavior in professional practices.When we look at the undesirable events that operating room nurses may encounter: incomplete or incorrect transmission of information about the patient during patient transfer from the operating room to the clinic, cutting and piercing instrument injuries, wrong side surgery, forgetting a foreign body, surgical electrocautery burns, urinary catheter-related infections, transfusion errors, surgical site infections, drug administration errors, pressure wounds due to falls and immobility, pulmonary embolism, problems arising from medical devices, injuries, ventilator-associated pneumonia, and deep vein thrombosis.No studies evaluating the relationship between operating room nurses and malpractice were found in the literature.Further studies are needed to develop strategies to reduce/prevent malpractice rates, which have important consequences for patients and health professionals and are important markers of health-care quality, and to determine the attitudes and tendencies of health professionals toward malpractice.
Source: BAU Health and Innovation
Author: Hatice Akaltun
Institution: Van Yüzüncü Yıl Üniversitesi
Language: English
Subfield: Pharmacy
Field: Health Professions
Domain: Health Sciences
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W4413220450