Medication Errors and Pharmacist Intervention at Government Hospital of Hyderabad, Pakistan

Background: Medication errors are of primary concern in hospitals of Pakistan but only few are reported. Prevalence and type of medication errors are essential for estimating the appropriateness of therapy. Pharmacist is key in improving therapy effectiveness and decreasing medication errors.

Objective: To assess the prevalence, type of medication errors and pharmacist interventions.

Methodology: An interventional study on prescriptions of inpatients was conducted at Liaquat University of Medical and Health Sciences (LUMHS) Hyderabad. Five hundred and fifteen prescriptions were collected randomly from medicine, gynecology and obstetrics and urology department during one year from 01-09-2017 to 31-08-2018. Medications errors were identified by Pharmacist by comparing the prescriptions with standard of British National Formulary (BNF) (edition 73) and informing physician for resolving medication errors. Data was analyzed with statistical package for social sciences version 25.0.

Results: Out of 515 inpatients prescriptions, male patients were 248 (48.2%) and female were 267 (51.8%) with male to female ratio of 1:1.08 and mean age of 37.7 ± 11.6 (18-60) years. 427 medication errors were reported in 303 (59.4%) prescriptions including; omission error 64 (15.0%), unauthorized drug error 41 (9.6%), wrong dose error 67 (15.7%), wrong time error 74 (17.3%), wrong dosage form error 27 (6.3%), wrong route error 23 (5.4%), wrong drug preparation 44 (10.3%), wrong rate error 56 (13.1%) and incorrect administration technique 31 (7.3%). 172 (40.3%) interventions of pharmacists were accepted by physicians.

Conclusion: Rate of medication errors in inpatients prescriptions are high with possible errors of dose, time, omission, rate, drug preparation and others. Pharmacist effectively intervening the prescriptions and playing active role in decreasing medication errors.