Medication Errors after Hospital Discharge among Families who use a Language other than English.

Abstract

Medication errors are common after pediatric hospital discharge, and families who use languages other than English may be at increased risk. In this study, we aimed to determine the association between caregiver language and medication errors after pediatric hospital discharge across two different clinical sites. We performed a cross-sectional study surveying parents who speak English and Spanish of hospitalized children < 18 years old who were prescribed a new scheduled oral medication upon discharge. We recruited patients between March 2022-November 2023 from two clinical sites, an academic tertiary care center and a community-based hospital. We surveyed parents about management of their children's medication at home and collected patient demographics as well as visit/ hospital characteristics. Bivariate analyses compared subject/visit-level factors and discharge processes with medication errors. We surveyed 145 parents, 59 of whom use Spanish and 86 who use English. Liquid medications (88%) and antibiotics (78%) were prescribed most frequently. Overall, 50 medication errors made by 39 unique individuals were identified, including 18 dosing errors. 19% of parents who use Spanish reported dosing errors compared to 8.1% of parents who use English (p = 0.06). Parents whose children were discharged from the academic tertiary care center were more likely to make a medication administration error (p = 0.03). Medication errors were common after pediatric hospital discharge and were more frequent among parents whose children were discharged from an academic children's hospital. Language of care was not associated with statistically significant differences in medication error rates. Future studies should explore factors related to site of care and language that may contribute to post-discharge errors.