Pharmacists' assessment of dispensing errors: risk factors, practice sites, professional functions, and satisfaction

Certain demographic, practice, staffing, and pharmacist satisfaction variables may contribute to dispensing errors. A survey was randomly mailed to 7298 (50%) Texas pharmacists, of which 2862 were returned (39% response rate). Responders were 2437 pharmacists who indicated that they were in practice. Of these, 535 (23%) reported no risk to patients for dispensing errors and 793 (34%) reported at least one patient/week was at risk for such an error. There was a positive relationship between number of prescription orders filled/hour and the estimated risk of dispensing errors (r(s)=0.285, p<0.001). Pharmacists practicing in mail service pharmacies (risk score = 1.85 +/- 1.32), traditional chain store pharmacies (1.66 +/- 1.18), and hospital pharmacies (1.61 +/- 1.09) reported a higher risk than other groups. Pharmacists practicing in independent community pharmacies (0.75 +/- 0.84), home health care (0.83 +/- 0.99), grocery chain store pharmacies (1.30 +/- 0.96), and mass merchandise chain store pharmacies (1.30 +/- 1.08) reported a lower risk (H=260, df=8, p<0.001). Nine job satisfaction variables were strongly associated with the risk of dispensing errors (r(s) = between -0.3 and -0.422, p<0.001), as were prescription volume, practice site, staffing, training, pharmacist functions, and professional organization membership. The results of this survey should help pharmacists and management develop specific plans for reducing the risks of dispensing errors. These data should be useful for more in-depth study of such errors.