Incidence of Medication Errors in King Fahad Hospital Madina Saudi Arabia

Abstract This study aimed to evaluate the incidence of medication errors over a period of one year in King Fahad Hospital Madina Saudi Arabia. This retrospective, cross-sectional study was conducted over a period of one year from 2018 January to 2018 December using patient’s records. King Fahad Hospital in Madina was selected for the study center. Data collected include the number and types of errors, severity, location of errors, errors by profession, and errors occurred in the medical wards. Statistical analysis was carried out using statistical package for social science version22. A total of twenty- six hundred and fifty-eight medication errors were reported during the study period. Among the reports 2567(96.5%) of the errors were due to near misses, followed by transcribing errors 1597(60%), ordering errors 928(34.9%), duplicative therapy 765(28.7%), wrong dose 454(%). The most common procedures involve medication errors were wrong documentation 442(16.6%), duration 168(6.3%) wrong quantity 162(6.4%). Majority of the medication errors were contributed by physicians (99.2%) and 0.7% of them were due to the pharmacist. In conclusion study findings reported that yet some kind of medication errors has been under reported and it was common in most hospital, further studies with intervention programs needed to control the incidence of medication errors in a Saudi hospital.摘要 本研究旨在评估沙特阿拉伯麦地那法赫德国王医院一年内的用药错误发生率。本回顾性横断面研究于2018年1月至2018年12月期间开展，通过调取患者病历资料完成研究，研究实施机构选定为麦地那法赫德国王医院。本次研究收集的数据涵盖用药错误的数量与类型、严重程度、错误发生部位、按职业分类的错误类型，以及内科病房发生的用药错误。采用社会科学统计软件包（Statistical Package for the Social Sciences，SPSS）22版进行统计分析。研究期间共计报告2658起用药错误。在所有报告的错误中，2567起（96.5%）为险些失误（near miss），其次为医嘱转录错误1597起（60%）、医嘱开具错误928起（34.9%）、重复治疗错误765起（28.7%）、给药剂量错误454起（%）。最常引发用药错误的操作环节为文书记录错误442起（16.6%）、用药疗程错误168起（6.3%）以及给药数量错误162起（6.4%）。绝大多数用药错误由医师造成（99.2%），仅0.7%的错误源于药师。综上，本研究结果显示，仍有部分用药错误未被充分报告，且此类问题在多数医院中普遍存在；未来需开展结合干预方案的相关研究，以管控沙特阿拉伯医院内用药错误的发生率。