Experiences and Perceptions of Registered Nurses Who Work in Acute Care Regarding Incident Reporting: A Scoping Review

Background/Objectives: Clinical incidents can be valuable learning tools to improve patient safety. However, failure to report or underreporting of clinical incidents is a global phenomenon. Understanding nurses’ experiences is essential to identifying challenges and developing strategies to enhance incident reporting behaviours. This review aimed to explore the experiences and perceptions of acute care bedside nurses regarding incident reporting. Methods: This review used scoping review methods. A search of the MEDLINE and CINAHL databases returned 16 papers that were included in the review. Results: Five main themes were identified—Fear of Reporting, Levels of Reporting, Lack of Knowledge, Education and Training on Reporting, Benefits of Reporting, and Changing the Culture. Conclusions: Nurses experience fear of incident reporting stemming from negative repercussions and the organisational blame culture. Lack of knowledge and training about errors and incident reporting processes limits incident reporting behaviours. To enhance reporting behaviours, promoting a just culture that includes the support of managers, open communication, and feedback on incidents is important. Education and training can also enhance nurses’ awareness and capability of incident reporting.