Medication errors in a health care facility in southern Saudi Arabia

• DOI: 10.4314/tjpr.v18i5.29
• Publication Date: 2021-05-27T14:03:41Z
• Authors: Sultan M. Alshahrani; Khaled M. Alakhali; Yaser Mohammed Al...
• Keywords: Emergency Medical Services; Family medicine; Potentially Inappropriate Prescribing; Economics; Inappropriate Medication Use; Medical emergency; Health Professions; Polypharmacy and Inappropriate Medication Use in Elderly; Nursing; FOS: Health sciences; Pediatrics; 03 medical and health sciences; 0302 clinical medicine; Psychological intervention; Medical Equipment Maintenance and Management; Health Sciences; Medication Errors; Improving Patient Safety in Healthcare Settings; Economic growth; Medical Errors; Health care; Medical prescription; Medication error; 3. Good health; Medical Laboratory Technology; Patient safety; Medicine; Emergency medicine; Geriatrics and Gerontology

Purpose: To identify medication errors at Aseer Central Hospital (ACH, Abha) in the southern province of Saudi Arabia. Methods: A cross-sectional retrospective study was conducted by reviewing adult patients’ records (> 15 years old) at ACH’s inpatient and outpatients settings over an 8-week period in October and November 2015. Results: We identified 113 medication errors, including 112 prescribing errors and 1 dispensing error. Most medication errors (91.2 %) in this study were for inpatient prescriptions. The most common prescribing error was medication duplication (31.2 %) followed by missing patient identifying information (25 %). Conclusion: Medication errors, mainly in inpatient prescriptions, have been fully identified at ACH. Educational interventions such as workshops could help minimize and prevent medication errors.