A prospective observational study of medication errors in a pediatric emergency department

Abstract We present a prospective, observational study evaluating the incidence of medication errors (ME) in a university hospital pediatric emergency department and describe their characteristics and determinants. A systematic analysis of the handwritten prescriptions was conducted by a clinician and pharmacist. Of 11,573 consecutively studied prescriptions in children under 15 years of age, the ME incidence was 0.9% ( n  = 102). The incidence of errors found was statistically significantly higher in children older than 5 years (OR = 2.05; P  = 0.026). There was no significant difference regarding the time of admission ( P  = 0.544), the day of the week ( P  = 0.940), or the affluence of people in attendance at the emergency department. The errors observed were all prescription errors. Most errors were related to analgesic (51%) and antibiotic (30%) treatments. No serious errors were reported. Conclusion We found a low incidence of medication errors in this study. The validation of prescriptions by a senior multidisciplinary staff could contribute to limited medication errors. Measures should be continued to further reduce the incidence of drug errors by calling the attention of prescribers to the most common situations at risk of ME.