Assessment of Medication Errors in Chemotherapy Receiving Patients in Tertiary Care Hospital

Abstract

Developing unique drug guidelines that address the institutions dose information, making drug info available electronically and train all members of the team to use electronic drug information can reduce medication error. In chemotherapy, the total no. of drugs given to the patient cannot be reduced so, there will be error occurance at some point, which is unavoidable.

Study and Evaluation of Medication Errors in Medicine and Orthopedic Wards of a Tertiary Care Hospital

“…The common factor may be lack of adequate knowledge in PGs regarding drug therapy, lack of drug information, incorrect diagnosis, lack of patient education and poor handwriting and job related stress and work load which are the reasons for errors committed by physicians. Even similar result was observed in the study carried out by karna et al [19] conducted in medicine wards, [i.e. untrained nurses (20.3%), increased workload (37.8%), stress environment (41.7%), handwriting (43.2%), high workload (18.9%), generic drugs (13.5%), unclear order (55.5%), and wrong order (44.4%)].…”

“…(73%) when compare to female (27%), (Table 1), this is because males are highly exposed to works and the chances of accidental incidents were more common which might be the reason for high number of males when compare to female. Even the similar results were observed in the study carried out by Karna et al [19] on study and evaluation of medication errors in medicine wards which showed predominant of males over females [i.e. males (77.4%) and females (22.6%)].…”

“…As in medicine ward maximum patient come across with complaints of high blood pressure, high blood sugar, high cholesterol level and stomach upset hence patient are mostly treated with CVS, gastrointestinal and endocrine drugs so the errors are occurred more in these groups of drugs. Even the similar results were observed in the study carried out by Karna et al [19] on study and evaluation of medication errors in medicine ward, where the largest number of medication errors occurred with the drugs of cardiovascular (16.7%), gastrointestinal (7.1%) and endocrine system (4.1%) respectively.…”

“…In orthopedic ward, the incidence of medication errors was high between 20-59 years (40%) (Table 3), this may be because of lot of stresses at this age group may leads to health related issues even system related factors were observed. Even the almost similar type of results was observed in the study conducted by Karna et al [19] in medicine wards which showed high In medicine ward, the incidence of medication error was observed more at the age group of 60-79 years (Table 3). Even this may be cause because of physiological changes and financial stress and showing need of pharmaceutical care in these patients.…”

“…The incidences of medication error are challenging and increasing day by day so many medication errors are probably undetected so its occurrence is common in both developed as well as developing countries [15]. Leape et al [20] study showed 66% adverse events can be preventable if the pharmacist presence in the ward rounds [19]. The detected or identified medication errors documentation will facilitate the error avoidance for understanding of the lapses in medication process and interferences for increasing awareness, policies and confidence in the health care system [20,21].…”