Are interventions to reduce interruptions and errors during medication administration effective?: a systematic review

Area of Science:

• Healthcare quality improvement
• Patient safety research
• Nursing practice

Background:

• Medication administration errors are a significant cause of patient harm.
• Interruptions during medication administration are suspected contributors to these errors.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate the effectiveness of interventions designed to decrease interruptions during medication administration.
• To assess the impact on both interruption frequency and medication administration error rates.

Main Methods:

• Systematic literature search of multiple databases (MEDLINE, EMBASE, CINAHL, PsycINFO) and hand-searched references.
• Inclusion of intervention studies with direct observational data on interruptions or medication administration errors.
• Analysis of ten studies, primarily from North America and Europe.

Main Results:

• Five studies showed significant changes in interruption rates, with four reporting reductions.
• Three studies indicated reductions in medication administration errors, but these involved multiple interventions.
• Methodological limitations include lack of controlled designs, inconsistent outcome definitions, and inadequate statistical analysis of clustering.

Conclusions:

• Evidence supporting the effectiveness of interventions to reduce interruptions and medication administration errors is currently weak.
• Further rigorous, controlled trials are essential to validate the benefits of such interventions.
• More research is needed to elucidate the complex relationship between interruptions and errors to guide future intervention development.