Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jun 27, 2025
A Pediatric Concussion Model in Mice: Closed Head Injury with Long-Term Disorders (CHILD)
Published on: February 7, 2025
Child Age and Risk of Medication Error: A Multisite Children's Hospital Study
Tim Badgery-Parker1, Ling Li1, Erin Fitzpatrick1
1Australian Institute of Health Innovation, Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia.
Insights
Older pediatric inpatients face a higher risk of medication errors, including prescribing and administration mistakes. This highlights age as an unrecognized factor needing targeted interventions in pediatric hospital care.
Area of Science:
- Pediatric Healthcare
- Patient Safety
- Medication Error Analysis
Background:
- Medication errors pose a significant risk in pediatric hospital settings.
- The relationship between patient age and medication errors is not fully understood.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the association between patient age and the occurrence of medication errors in pediatric inpatients.
- To identify specific age-related patterns in prescribing and administration errors.
Main Methods:
- A secondary analysis of prescribing error data from chart reviews and medication administration error data from direct observation across two tertiary pediatric hospitals.
- Multilevel models were employed to analyze the association between patient age and medication errors, using restricted cubic splines for nonlinearity.
Main Results:
- Prescribing errors showed a nonlinear increase with age, rising after 3 years and plateauing in teenage years (P = .01).
- Medication administration errors increased with age after 8 years (P = .03), with variations by administration route (oral, intravenous infusion, intravenous injection).
Conclusions:
- Older age is an unrecognized risk factor for medication errors on general pediatric wards.
- Clinical profiles and attention to medication practices for older pediatric patients may contribute to risk.
- Further research is needed to develop targeted interventions for error reduction.
Objective:
The objective of this study was to examine associations between patient age and medication errors among pediatric inpatients.
Study Design:
Secondary analysis of data sets generated from 2 tertiary pediatric hospitals: (1) prescribing errors identified from chart reviews for patients on 9 general wards at hospital A during April 22 to July 10, 2016, June 20 to September 20, 2017, and June 20 to September 30, 2020; prescribing errors from 5 wards at hospital B in the same periods and (2) medication administration errors assessed by direct prospective observation of 5137 administrations on 9 wards at hospital A. Multilevel models examined the association between patient age and medication errors. Age was modeled using restricted cubic splines to allow for nonlinearity.
Results:
Prescribing errors increased nonlinearly with patient age (P = .01), showing little association from ages 0 to 3 years and then increasing with age until around 10 years and remaining constant through the teenage years. Administration errors increased with patient age, with no association from 0 to around 8 years and then a steady rise with increasing age (P = .03). The association differed by route: linear for oral, no association for intravenous infusions, and U-shaped for intravenous injections.
Conclusions:
Older age is an unrecognized risk factor for medication error on general wards in pediatric hospitals. Contributors to risk may be the clinical profiles of these older children or the general level of attention paid to medication practices for this group. Further investigation may allow the design of more targeted interventions to reduce errors.
Related Concept Videos
01:21Factors Affecting Drug Response: Overview
01:18Guidelines and Strategies for Safe Computer Charting
Maintain Confidentiality and Security:
01:30Guidelines for Nursing Documentation I
Factual:
The following points emphasize the significance of upholding accurate and unbiased documentation in healthcare.
01:25Errors occurring during blood pressure monitoring
Several factors...
01:08Obedience
01:02Prescription, Nonprescription and Orphan Drugs
The misuse and addiction to prescription drugs is a growing problem that can affect people of all age groups, specifically teenagers. This can happen when prescription medications are used in ways not intended by the prescriber, such as taking someone else's prescription or using medication for...