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Published on: November 9, 2016
[Medication errors in pediatrics]
Andrés Felipe Valencia Quintero1, Pedro Amariles2, Natalia Rojas Henao1
1Hospital Pablo Tobón Uribe, Medellín, Colombia.
Insights
Medication errors are common in hospitalized children, with prescription errors being the most frequent. Understanding these errors helps in developing targeted interventions to improve pediatric patient safety.
Area of Science:
- Pediatric patient safety
- Medication error analysis
- Healthcare quality improvement
Background:
- Medication errors (ME) are preventable adverse events in medication use.
- Pediatric patients are particularly vulnerable, with ME prevalence three times higher than in adults.
- ME contribute to significant healthcare costs and can be fatal.
Purpose of the Study:
- To determine the prevalence of medication errors in hospitalized pediatric patients.
- To classify medication errors based on the stage of medication use.
- To inform targeted interventions for reducing pediatric ME.
Main Methods:
- Systematic literature review of studies published in the last 10 years.
- Searched PubMed/Medline using "Medication Errors" and "Pediatrics".
- Independent review of 22 eligible studies using STROBE checklist criteria.
Main Results:
- Error rates ranged from 1% to 58% across studies.
- Prescription errors, primarily incorrect dosage, were most common (41%).
- Errors occurred across all stages: prescription, administration, preparation, and reconciliation.
Conclusions:
- Medication errors are prevalent in pediatric populations.
- Prescription and administration stages are key areas for ME.
- Data on ME prevalence guides focused interventions to enhance pediatric safety.
Introduction:
Medication errors (ME) are preventable incidents of inappropriate use of medications by health per sonnel or by the patient. These events can occur at any stage of drug use generating significant costs to the health system and, in some cases, these can even lead to death. The pediatric population is con sidered susceptible to ME with a prevalence 3 times higher than adult patients.
Objective:
To identify the prevalence of medication errors in hospitalized pediatric patients, as well as their classification according to the stage of use of the medication when they occurred.
Method:
A literature review of ME in pediatrics was carried out through a Pubmed / Medline search using Mesh terms ("Medication Errors" and "Pediatrics") in the last 10 years. Three investigators reviewed independently the identi fied articles considering the STROBE checklist for observational studies.
Results:
192 bibliographic references were identified, 22 of them were eligible for review and data collection. Studies reported an error rate between 1% and 58% of the evaluated medication indications, with errors reported in different processes of drug use. 9 articles (41%) described errors related only to prescription, mainly associated with incorrect dosage, 6 (27%) errors related to prescription, administration, and other processes, 3 (14%) related to prescription and administration, 2 (9%) related only to administra tion, 1 (4%) article reported errors related to conciliation, and 1 (4%) described errors related to preparation and administration.
Conclusion:
The studies reported different medication errors in the pediatric population. Most of them reported ME related to prescription followed by ME in the administration. Knowing the proportion of ME allows focusing interventions aimed at reducing their prevalence.
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