Assessment of Medication Errors in Emergency Ward at Nekemte Referral Hospital, West Ethiopia

Abstract

Background: Medication error is defined as failure in the treatment process that leads to or has the potential to lead to harm to the patient. It may occur at each five stages of drug ordering and delivery including prescription, transcription, dispensing, and administration or monitoring. Prevalence of medication error in healthcare settings have been found that they were common in hospitals. A significant proportion of medication errors are associated with actual or potentially harmful effects. Objective: The major goal of this assessment was to figure out the actual practices on the ground in medications administered in NRH emergency ward, emphasizing on distribution and prevalence of errors. Methods: This study was a cross-sectional retrospective study conducted at medical and pediatrics wards of NRH. Results: To meet objectives, 768 prescription papers were used to collect necessary data within this study period. A total of 768 patient’s medical prescription orders, there were about 71.73% of at least one prescription error when it is compared to standard prescription order. Of this medication error prevalence, the number of prescriptions with low dose (35.93%) number of prescriptions without appropriate indication (26.43%) number of prescriptions with too high-dose (3.13%) number of prescriptions with inappropriate interval (2.73%) number of prescriptions with drug interaction (1.95%) number of prescriptions with contraindication (1.56%). Numbers of prescriptions with 1st line medicine indicated for diseases were 1.43%. Of total sampled prescriptions, the numbers of drugs order per the number of prescriptions were two. There were prescriptions without patient address (99.35%), prescriptions without card number (97.40%) prescriptions without date (60.94%) prescriptions without sex of patients, (13.02%) prescriptions without age of patients (8.85%). Conclusion and Recommendation: There were clear and large medication and prescription errors on medication prescribing and administration practices in NRH emergency ward. Every member of clinical team had better strive to perform sound performance standard to ensure maximum patient therapeutic outcome as long as negligence and carelessness must not make a patient life to be claimed.