| Medication errors (MEs) are probably the commonest form of medical error. The majority of research has centred on MEs and their prevention in adults. Little is known about paediatric MEs, What is more, the extent of risk in paediatrics is not known, especially in the UK. Therefore, this research project investigated the definitions, incidence and nature of prescribing and administration errors in paediatric inpatients across five different UK hospitals. Definitions for prescribing and administration errors in paediatrics were established using a two-stage Delphi technique of a 50-member expert panel. These definitions were then used in subsequent studies. A review of drug charts in 11 wards across five different UK hospitals identified that 10.1% out of 2955 medication orders contained a prescribing error. The most frequent prescribing error was having incomplete prescriptions (54.2%). Dosing errors were the second common type (14.8%), involving two to 100-fold errors. Observations in ten wards across the some five UK hospitals identified that 15.5% out of 1554 preparations and administrations of drugs to paediatric inpatients were erroneous. The most common type of administration error involved wrong preparations (25.5%), mainly of intravenous (IV) medications. Great variation in administration errors existed between words/hospitals; one reason for this variation could be safety culture. Therefore, the safety culture within the wards/hospitals was assessed. This work demonstrates that prescribing and administration errors are not uncommon in paediatric inpatients in the UK, with the potential of harming patients unnecessarily. There is an urgent need to establish interventions that will help in the reductions of these errors, and to understand the variations in error rotes between wards studied. |
