Advances in Pharmacoepidemiology and Drug Safety

Medication prescribing errors in the medical intensive care unit of Tikur Anbesa Specialized Hospital, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

11^th International Conference on Pharmacoepidemiology and Clinical Research

October 02-03, 2017 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Oumer Sada

Addis Ababa University, Ethiopia

Posters & Accepted Abstracts: Adv Pharmacoepidemiol Drug Saf

Abstract:

Medication errors (MEs) are important problems in all hospitalized populations, especially in intensive care unit (ICU). Little is known about the prevalence of medication prescribing errors in the ICU of hospitals in Ethiopia. The aim of this study was to assess medication prescribing errors in the ICU of Tikur Anbessa Specialized Hospital using retrospective cross-sectional analysis of patient cards and medication charts. About 220 patient charts were reviewed with a total of 1311 patient-days and 882 prescription episodes. 359 MEs were detected with prevalence of 40 per 100 orders. Common prescribing errors were omission errors-54 (42.89%), wrong combination-101 (28.13%), wrong abbreviation-48 (13.37%), wrong dose-30 (8.36%), wrong frequency-18 (5.01%) and wrong indications-8 (2.23%). The present study shows that medication errors are common in medical ICU of Tikur Anbessa Specialized Hospital. These results suggest future targets of prevention strategies to reduce the rate of medication error.