pediatric-dosages.ch: from a dosage booklet to a “clinical decision support system“

Abstract

Adverse drug events caused by medication errors are about three times as frequent in hospitalised children as they are in adult patients [1]. In many cases, pharmacotherapy in children requires additional know-how because of a lack of data about the use of drugs in this patient population. In Switzerland, about 50% of the drugs are prescribed off label or are unlicensed in paediatrics [2, 3]. The fact that wrong doses are amongst the most frequent medication errors in children [1, 4, 5] shows that finding the right dose is an especially demanding task for health-care professionals.