Contributing factors of pediatric medication errors involving high-alert medications: A qualitative content analysis of self-reported medication safety incidents.

Background: High-alert medications can cause severe medication errors (MEs) in pediatrics. A comprehensive understanding of the factors contributing to errors is needed to establish risk management actions.

Objective: To analyze incident reports involving high-alert medications and describe the contributing factors (CFs) of MEs in pediatrics.

Methods: A retrospective document analysis study utilizing an abductive qualitative content analysis of self-reported medication safety incidents concerning high-alert medications at a pediatric university hospital from 2018 to 2020. Incident reports (n = 426) were first subjected to an inductive qualitative content analysis to identify and categorize CFs, then quantified by frequencies and percentages, and ultimately deductively categorized based on the elements of the Systems Engineering Initiative for Patient Safety (SEIPS) model. The analysis was first conducted by one independent researcher, then reviewed by a second researcher, and later reviewed by the entire research group.

Results: A total of 933 CFs were identified, concerning 85.0 % (n = 362/426) of the incident reports. The most common main categories of CFs pertained to verifying the correct drug (11.1 %; n = 104/933), medications and pharmaceuticals (10.6 %; n = 99/933), and resourcing (10.5 %; n = 98/933). Over half of the CFs were linked to SEIPS elements involving tasks (39.6 %, n = 370) and tools and technologies (20.8 %, n = 194).

Conclusions: The CFs of pediatric MEs involving high-alert medications are multifaceted and have a wide impact on the entire system design, from organizational strategies to individual tasks. Risk management actions and further studies addressing pediatric-specific challenges are required to ensure the most optimal systemic defenses, enabling proactive monitoring error-provoking conditions in clinical practice.