Evaluation of Medication Errors in Teaching Hospitals

Introduction: Medication errors (MEs) are a common explanation for iatrogenic adverse events. This study appraised the incidence of MEs and identified the error types in the hospitals affiliated to Azad University of Medical Sciences, located in Tehran, Iran. Materials and Methods: This cross-sectional descriptive study was conducted on all patients admitted to the hospitals affiliated to Azad University of Medical Sciences. The data were collected by means of a drug safety checklist and then extracted and analyzed in SPSS software (version 22.0). Moreover, drug interaction was assessed based on the World Health Organization guidelines and Medscape application. Results: The mean MEs incidence was obtained as 43.38±5.25. Moreover, the mean numbers of errors in prescribing drugs and antibiotics were 4.71±2.93 and 1.02±0.95, respectively. According to the results, drug interactions occurred in 12.3% of the medicines. In addition, ME showed a significant correlation with education status, ward type, admission type, hepatic failure, hepatic enzymes, patient weight (when on antibiotics), antibiotic effect, and patient age (65> years). Conclusion: The results were indicative of a high prevalence of prescription errors. Moreover, it was found that most of MEs were made by doctors, mainly due to the lack of an electronic drug registration system. Therefore, physicians need to be educated on how to increase patient safety through drug safety.