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Background & Aims: Patient safety is the priority of the operating room. Since retained surgical items and specimen management errors are the most important safety issues, operating room nurses and technologist are in a unique position to report the errors that occur in the OR. On the other hand, documentation is also the task of these personnel, so the aim of present study is to determine the effect of counting surgical items and specimen care documentation forms on the number of reported errors. Materials & Methods: A semi-experimental, single-group and pre-post design was conducted. Sampling was done by census and 65 technologists and nurses met the study inclusion criteria. The data collection tool was an error reporting questionnaire. During intervention documentation of the intraoperative care was performed for two months and the error reporting questionnaire was distributed before and after intervention period. Results: The frequency of unreported errors after the intervention was significantly decreased but the frequency of oral reported errors were not significantly different between before and after the intervention, and the frequency of counting surgical items written errors after the intervention was significantly increased. Conclusion: Using appropriate documentation can encourage OR nurses and technologists to report errors and increase patient safety.    

Keywords: Documentation, Surgery, Count, Specimen handling, Error, Reporting, Operating Room

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