Ethical leadership, nursing error and error reporting from the nurses’ perspective

BACKGROUND: Nursing errors endanger patient safety, and error reporting helps identify errors and system vulnerabilities. Nursing managers play a key role in preventing nursing errors by using leadership skills. One of the leadership approaches is ethical leadership. AIM: This study determined the level of ethical leadership from the nurses' perspective and its effect on nursing error and error reporting in teaching hospitals affiliated to Shahid Sadoughi University of Medical Sciences, Yazd, Iran. RESEARCH DESIGN: This was a cross-sectional descriptive study. PARTICIPANTS AND RESEARCH CONTEXT: A total of 171 nurses working in medical-surgical wards were selected through random sampling. Data collection was carried out using "ethical leadership in nursing, nursing errors and error reporting" questionnaires. Data were analyzed with SPSS20 using descriptive and analytical statistics. ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS: This study was approved by the Ethics Committee for Medical Research. Ethical considerations such as completing informed consent form, ensuring confidentiality of information, explaining research objectives, and voluntary participation were observed in the present study. FINDINGS: The results showed that the level of nursing managers' ethical leadership was moderate from the nurses' point of view. The highest and the lowest levels were related to the power-sharing and task-oriented dimensions, respectively. There was a significant relationship between nursing managers' level of ethical leadership with error rates and error reporting. CONCLUSION: The development of ethical leadership approach in nursing managers reduces error rate and increases error reporting. Programs designed to promote such approach in nursing managers at all levels can help reduce the level of error rate and maintain patient safety.