Factors Associated With Medication Errors at a Teaching Hospital in Malaysia

Background: Medication errors (MEs) continue to pose a significant problem to health care systems across the world, not only causing harm and death in patients but also consuming approximately $42 billion annually in health care expenditure. The emergency department (ED) is considered a high-risk area of having MEs to occur. Little is known about the associated factors of ME in the ED of hospitals in Malaysia. Objective: The objective of this study was to determine the factors associated with ME in an ED of a teaching hospital. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted on patients who visited the ED of Hospital Universiti Sains Malaysia over 9 weeks during normal working hours (ie, 8:00 am-5:00 pm). A total of 547 patients who satisfied the inclusion criteria were enrolled for the study. Patient demographic information, clinical characteristics, and medication orders and procedures were observed and recorded. The required number of patient data (n = 311) were selected randomly for analysis. Multiple logistic regression method was employed to determine factors associated with ME. Results: Of the 311 patient data, 95 (30.5%) patients had at least 1 ME. The factors found to be associated with ME were number of medications (adjusted odds ratio [OR], 1.91; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.51-2.41), triage (adjusted OR, 0.11; 95% CI, 0.04-0.27), gender (adjusted OR, 0.50; 95% CI, 0.26-0.93), and time of patient visit (adjusted OR, 0.34; 95% CI, 0.52-0.75). Conclusion: Medication error was not uncommon in our ED setting. Patients with a higher number of medications prescribed during visit to the ED were found to be particularly at risk. Identification of such factors may guide intervention measures to prevent MEs in this setting.