The nurse's role in the causation of compensable injury.

Mistakes can be life-threatening and result in malpractice claims. There are few studies that discuss malpractice claims and nursing. The purpose was to identify possible relationships between the actions, behaviors, or characteristics of RNs and the injury suffered by a patient involved in a compensable event. Claims were analyzed retrospectively. Using the Fischer exact test, nurse inaction yielded a higher patient outcome severity score. No single nurse behavior or characteristic was significantly related to the patient outcome severity score. Findings support the belief that system problems may be a contributing factor.