Pharmacist interventions in high-risk obstetric inpatient unit: a medication safety issue

The aim of this study was to report number, type and severity of prescribing errors and pharmacist interventions in high-risk pregnant and postpartum women.

A prospective cross-sectional, observational study.

A high-risk obstetric inpatient unit of a Women's Hospital in Brazil.

About 1826 electronic prescriptions for 549 women in the high-risk obstetrics inpatient unit were included.

When the pharmacist detected potential prescribing errors, interventions were suggested.

Prescriptions were evaluated by clinical pharmacist to identify the type, frequency and severity of prescribing errors and rate of clinical pharmacist intervention acceptance in a high-risk obstetric inpatient.

A total of 1826 prescriptions were reviewed with 128 errors (7.0%). The most frequent errors were drug interaction (43.8%), incorrect frequency (21.5%) and improper dose (13.1%). One-hundred and sixty-eight interventions were made by pharmacists, 98.8% of which were accepted by prescribers. Higher maternal age (OR 1.0 (95%CI 1.0-1.1)), higher number of prescribed medications (OR 1.2 (95%CI 1.1-1.3)), obstetric conditions (OR 2.2 (95%CI 1.4-3.3)) and non-breastfeeding postpartum women (OR 3.9 (95% CI 2.5-6.1)) were the independent factors associated with prescribing errors identified through multivariate analysis.

The most common prescription errors related to drug interactions, incorrect frequency and higher number of prescribed medications. The rate of pharmacist acceptance intervention was high.