Abstract

ANALYSIS OF PRESCRIPTIONS AND STUDY OF DEVIATIONS FROM WHO PRESCRIPTION WRITING GUIDELINES IN PAEDIATRIC DEPARTMENT OF TERTIARY CARE HOSPITAL

Arya Jayakumar* and Dr. D. S. Puranik

ABSTRACT

Medication errors (Medication errors) are any preventable events that may lead to inappropriate medication use or patient harm while the medication is in the control of healthcare professionals. The present study was aimed to assess different types of medication errors encountered in the wards, identify underlying cause, suggest change in attitude and practices of personals involved in medication process, wherever necessary and to screen outpatient prescriptions to study the deviations from ‗World Health Organization prescription writing guidelines‘ as a standard in Paediatric Department of a tertiary care hospital. The study was carried out in both ambulatory and inpatients of department of Paediatrics. Pretested structured proforma was prepared. All relevant details of 200 inpatients and 774 outpatient prescriptions were collected. Of the 68 incidences of medication errors observed, administration technique errors were most frequent. Medication errors were found mostly in infants (61.76%) followed by young child (30.88%), child (7.35%). Errors frequency is highest among interventions provided to treat influenza and pneumonia (69.23%), followed by intervention provided to treat lower respiratory infections (54.29%). Drug class involved in most of errors was bronchodilators (69.11%) followed by corticosteroids (17.64%). The present study concludes that, among 200 subjects, there were 68 incidences of medication error that corresponded to a proportion of 34.0% without any life threatening events. Screening of outpatient prescriptions found that prescriber‘s name was missing in 10.59% of the prescriptions and 7.36% prescriptions were not legible. The drug names were not mentioned by their generic names in all prescriptions.

Keywords: Medication error; Prescription; Guidelines; Assessment; Paediatrics.