Abstract

“MEDICATIONS ERRORS MOST NEGLIGIBLE DISASTER: PRESCRIBING FAULTS AND PRESCRIPTION ERRORS”

Maria Ayub*, Zainab Abbas, Farwa Abbas, Faryal Zehra

ABSTRACT

Prescription errors are the major problem among the medication errors.. A definition states that a ‘clinically eloquent prescribing error occurs when there is an unintended significant reduction in the possibility of treatment being timely and effective or increase in the risk of harm when compared with generally recognized practice. World Health Organization (WHO) identified rational use of drugs requires that patients receive medication applicable to their clinical needs, in doses that meet their own individual requirement for an adequate period of time and at the lowest cost to them and their community. This study aims to evaluate Prescription error comparison in hospital and clinical settings in Pakistan and consequence responsible for that (doctors/nurses/pharmacist) And how it can be minimized. Nevertheless, the drug prescription and administration process in most hospitals worldwide is still based on handwritten medical chart entries. Prescribing errors can be observed if sufficient and necessary information’s are not mentioned in prescription. Nevertheless, the drug prescription and administration process in most hospitals worldwide is still based on handwritten medical chart entries. This study was conducted in Karachi May 2015 on descriptive studies of prescription errors collected from different healthcare clinics and hospitals. . At the start of the study, the pharmacist of each of the selected pharmacies was informed regarding the nature of study and its utility and his or her cooperation was sought. We observed that 52% of prescription errors were made by the hospital physicians whereas 48% of prescription errors were made by the clinic physicians. Almost 50% of the error was found in both hospital and clinical prescriptions. Conclusively, after the consensus we found out that the people responsible for medical errors are mostly Doctors. Some doctors verbally direct their patients about their medications which can cause complications in future i.e. the patient might misunderstand the directions. Moreover, graphical representation comparisons were made between hospital prescriptions and clinic prescriptions and analyzed whether they fulfill the ideal prescription criteria or not.

Keywords: Prescription errors, Medication error, superscription, mark/label, pharmacist.