Objective: This study aims to examines nurses' perceptions of medication errors, factors contributing to them.

Methods: This study is a descriptive cross-sectional study that involved a total of 355 nurses working in three governmental hospitals and one private hospital in Al Diwaniyah City. The nurses were approached during their work shifts and asked to complete a self-administered questionnaire consisting of five parts, which was developed based on existing literature. Out of the 355 nurses approached, 352 of them completed the questionnaire. Data analysis involved the use of descriptive statistics.

Results: The study found that the most common type of medication errors was administering medication at the wrong time, with a score of 2.5±1.02. Less severe errors were less frequent. Among the contributing factors to medication errors, the most common leading factors for administering medication errors were stress along with tiredness, which belongs to the personal category of factors contributing to errors, and the nurse's confusion resulting from repeated visits, which belongs to the environmental category, The study found a significant correlation between wrong time errors and systemic factors, two significant associations between wrong rate and both systemic and personal factors, and significant relations between omission of dose errors and all factor categories.

Conclusion and Recommendations: Nurses report common types of medication errors (MEs) including wrong time of drug administration, wrong rate of IV medication delivery, and omission of dose while giving medication to the wrong patient. Personal factors like stress and tiredness, and environmental factors like frequent visits, contribute to these errors. The association between wrong time and characteristics like age, gender, educational level, hospital type, and ward is statistically significant. A significant relationship exists between wrong time errors and systemic factors.

Recommendations: Policymakers and hospital administrators need to assess factors contributing to medication errors (ME) to create guidelines and a safer healthcare system. Nurse demographic attributes and attitudes towards reporting ME are linked, and assistance in defining ME, reporting timing, and reporting to whom may be needed. The General Department of Health and the Ministry of Health could employ more nurses to address shortages, improve the working environment, and encourage all nursing staff to participate in medication error training courses.