Medication errors: definitions and classification.

Area of Science:

• Pharmacology and patient safety research.

Background:

• Accurate classification and definition of medication errors are crucial for developing effective prevention strategies.
• Existing definitions of technical terms in medicine can be approached through etymology, usage, prior definitions, or the Ramsey-Lewis method.

Purpose of the Study:

• To establish clear definitions for medication errors, prescribing faults, and prescription errors.
• To classify medication errors based on psychological theory to guide preventive measures.

Main Methods:

• Review and synthesis of definitions for technical terms in medication safety.
• Classification of medication errors using psychological theory: knowledge-based mistakes, rule-based mistakes, action-based slips, and memory-based lapses.

Main Results:

• A medication error is defined as a treatment process failure with potential for patient harm.
• Prescribing faults (decision-making failures) are distinct from prescription errors (writing failures).
• Balanced prescribing is defined as appropriate medicine use optimizing benefit-harm balance.

Conclusions:

• Clear definitions and a psychological classification of medication errors are essential for developing targeted preventive strategies.
• Distinguishing between prescribing faults and prescription errors aids in identifying specific points of failure in the medication use process.