Search research articles

ABOUT JoVE

Overview Leadership Blog JoVE Help Center

AUTHORS

Publishing Process Editorial Board Scope & Policies Peer Review FAQ Submit

LIBRARIANS

Testimonials Subscriptions Access Resources Library Advisory Board FAQ

RESEARCH

JoVE Journal Methods Collections JoVE Encyclopedia of Experiments Archive

EDUCATION

JoVE Core JoVE Business JoVE Science Education JoVE Lab Manual Faculty Resource Center Faculty Site

Terms & Conditions of Use

Search research articles

Related Experiment Videos

Medication errors involving patient-controlled analgesia.

Rodney W Hicks¹, Vanja Sikirica, Winnie Nelson

¹Patient Safety Research and Practice, United States Pharmacopeia, Rockville, MD, USA.

American Journal of Health-System Pharmacy : AJHP : Official Journal of the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists

|February 19, 2008

Summary

This summary is machine-generated.

Related Concept Videos

You might also read

Related Articles

Articles linked to this work by shared authors, journal, and citation graph.

Sort by

Same author

Disease Burden and Pharmacological Treatment Patterns in Children and Adults With Phenylketonuria: A Real-World Matched Cohort Study.

Journal of inherited metabolic disease·2026

Same author

Characterizing the frequency of clinical events and assessing biomarkers in propionic acidemia: a natural history study.

Orphanet journal of rare diseases·2026

Same author

Epidemiology of Hyperphenylalaninemia: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.

Sage open pediatrics·2026

Same author

A Scoping Review of Interventions to Prevent Lost Surgical Specimens in the Preanalytical Phase.

AORN journal·2026

Same author

Writing for the AORN Journal: Supporting Elements Really Do Support Your Manuscript.

AORN journal·2025

Same author

The brushstrokes of scholarship: Special emphasis on writing with references.

Journal of the American Association of Nurse Practitioners·2025

Same journal

Impact of pharmacist involvement on hospital sepsis response teams.

American journal of health-system pharmacy : AJHP : official journal of the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists·2026

Same journal

Attributes of centralized health-system specialty pharmacy clinics: A scoping review using the Donabedian model.

American journal of health-system pharmacy : AJHP : official journal of the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists·2026

Same journal

Zoliflodacin: A novel single-dose oral antibiotic for uncomplicated urogenital gonorrhea.

American journal of health-system pharmacy : AJHP : official journal of the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists·2026

Same journal

Implementation of a paid apprenticeship-model pharmacy technician training program.

American journal of health-system pharmacy : AJHP : official journal of the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists·2026

Same journal

Iodixanol-induced acute generalized exanthematous pustulosis: Cross-reactivity to other iodinated contrast media.

American journal of health-system pharmacy : AJHP : official journal of the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists·2026

Same journal

Sonrotoclax.

American journal of health-system pharmacy : AJHP : official journal of the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists·2026

See all related articles

Patient-controlled analgesia (PCA) medication errors are common, with human factors like distractions and inexperienced staff being primary causes. These errors, particularly those causing harm, necessitate significant institutional resources for management.

Area of Science:

Pharmacology
Patient Safety
Health Informatics

Background:

Patient-controlled analgesia (PCA) is a widely used method for pain management.
Medication errors associated with PCA can lead to patient harm and increased healthcare costs.

Purpose of the Study:

To analyze the magnitude, frequency, and nature of nonharmful and harmful medication errors related to PCA.
To identify the causes and contributing factors of PCA medication errors.

Main Methods:

Retrospective analysis of the Medmarx national voluntary medication error-reporting database (July 2000–June 2005).
Inclusion of 9,571 PCA-related medication error records from 801 facilities.
Quantitative and qualitative analysis of error severity, type, cause, contributing factors, and drugs/staff involved.

Related Experiment Videos

Main Results:

1% of all medication errors (9,571/919,241) were PCA-related; 6.5% of these (624) resulted in patient harm.
Errors occurred across all medication-use phases, predominantly during administration.
Improper dosage (38%), omission (17.4%), and wrong drug (17.3%) were common error types. Human factors (distractions, inexperienced staff) were the leading causes.

Conclusions:

Medication errors in PCA occur throughout the medication-use process.
These errors, often stemming from human factors, can lead to significant patient harm and require substantial resources.