Hospital prescribing errors: epidemiological assessment of predictors

Abstract

Aims To demonstrate an epidemiological method to assess predictors of prescribing errors. Methods A retrospective case-control study, comparing prescriptions with and without errors. Results Only prescriber and drug characteristics were associated with errors. Prescriber characteristics were medical specialty (e.g. orthopaedics: OR: 3.4, 95% CI 2.1, 5.4) and prescriber status (e.g. verbal orders transcribed by nursing staff: OR: 2.5, 95% CI 1.8, 3.6). Drug characteristics were dosage form (e.g. inhalation devices: OR: 4.1, 95% CI 2.6, 6.6), therapeutic area (e.g. gastrointestinal tract: OR: 1.7, 95% CI 1.2, 2.4) and continuation of preadmission treatment (Yes: OR: 1.7, 95% CI 1.3, 2.3). Conclusions Other hospitals could use our epidemiological framework to identify their own error predictors. Our ®ndings suggest a focus on speci®c prescribers, dosage forms and therapeutic areas. We also found that prescriptions originating from general practitioners involved errors and therefore, these should be checked when patients are hospitalized.

Assessing commitment to principles of prescription writing for outpatients in teaching hospitals of Ahvaz: 2015

“…25 In a study by Finji, drug dosage was not mentioned in 63% of the examined prescriptions. 30 In 98.08% of the examined prescriptions in the present study, the identity of the physician was mentioned. In a study on prescription writing skill among two groups of dentists, 98.1% of the prescriptions written by the first group and 22.8% of the prescriptions written by the second group had the dentist's signature; furthermore, 46.3% of the prescriptions written by the first group and 15.8% of the prescriptions written by the second group had medical system code as well.…”

Analysis of Out Door Patients’ Prescriptions According to World Health Organization (WHO) Prescribing Indicators Among Private Hospitals in Western India

“…These include errors involving omission of needed information; poor hand-writing perhaps leading to errors of drug dose or timing; and prescription of drugs that are inappropriate for the specific situation. Prescribing errors promote the irrational use of drugs and decrease patient compliance [6].…”

Physician Acceptance of Pharmacist Recommendations about Medication Prescribing Errors in Iraqi Hospitals

“…However, British, American and Saudi studies reported that incorrect dose was the most common prescribing error (54%, 39.7% and 22.1% respectively) [6,8,29]. Similarly, a 14-day study in teaching hospitals in Netherlands indicated the dosing errors (dose/duration) was the most common prescribing error type (63%) [19]. Therefore, among the reviewed studies in the literature, our study had the second highest percentage of drug-drug interaction errors.…”

“…There was only one Iraqi study measuring medication errors by 2014 and this was an observational study (without interventions) which evaluated the types and medication classes of these errors [18]. Although several studies have investigated pharmacist interventions in prescribing errors around the world [6,8,[19][20][21][22][23][24][25], almost all of these studies were limited to evaluations of the incidence rate, causes, clinical significance and types of prescribing errors. However, a little is known about physician acceptance rate of pharmacist recommendations and only a couple of studies have focused on implementation of recommendations [26,27].…”