Incidence of Medication Errors in King Fahad Hospital Madina Saudi Arabia

Abstract

This study aimed to evaluate the incidence of medication errors over a period of one year in King Fahad Hospital Madina Saudi Arabia. This retrospective, cross-sectional study was conducted over a period of one year from 2018 January to 2018 December using patient's records. King Fahad Hospital in Madina was selected for the study center. Data collected include the number and types of errors, severity, location of errors, errors by profession, and errors occurred in the medical wards. Statistical analysis was carried out using statistical package for social science version22. A total of twentysix hundred and fifty-eight medication errors were reported during the study period. Among the reports 2567(96.5%) of the errors were due to near misses, followed by transcribing errors 1597(60%), ordering errors 928(34.9%), duplicative therapy 765(28.7%), wrong dose 454(%). The most common procedures involve medication errors were wrong documentation 442(16.6%), duration 168(6.3%) wrong quantity 162(6.4%). Majority of the medication errors were contributed by physicians (99.2%) and 0.7% of them were due to the pharmacist. In conclusion study findings reported that yet some kind of medication errors has been under reported and it was common in most hospital, further studies with intervention programs needed to control the incidence of medication errors in a Saudi hospital.

Perceptions and Practices of Saudi Hospital Pharmacists Towards Reporting Medication Errors Including Near Misses

“…Additionally, 58.2% of pharmacists were more likely to report an incident in which they were involved. These findings were consistent with findings in other studies that stated that patients had not reported MEs due to concerns about taking blame from patients, colleagues, or hospitals [ 11 ]. This finding urges the need for hospital management to facilitate positive and non-blame cultures for reporting MEs.…”

“…This is understandable from the fact that most of the pharmacists working in the Kingdom are males. Moreover, females are mostly reluctant to take part in activities such as surveys and interviews because of cultural constraints in Saudi Arabia [ 11 ].…”

“…Within Saudi Arabia, there is an increased focus on implementing a patient safety culture; however, some aspects relating to patient safety need development, such as MEs reporting [ 20 , 21 ]. MEs in Saudi are often underreported and where reported they ranged between 40% and 70% [ 11 ]. Thus, there is still no clear mechanism for reporting MEs, especially in hospitals.…”

“…In this respect, education of pharmacists is essential in preventing MEs, and many initiatives have been developed in this sense [9][10][11][12]. Education creates continuous learning and open communication that allows reporting errors in a blame-free environment [11,12].…”

“…In this respect, education of pharmacists is essential in preventing MEs, and many initiatives have been developed in this sense [9][10][11][12]. Education creates continuous learning and open communication that allows reporting errors in a blame-free environment [11,12]. In this respect, not only knowledge and actions are important for preventing MEs but also reporting plays a key role in early prevention [9].…”