OVERVIEW OF MEDICATION ERROR INCIDENCE IN HOSPITALS IN VARIOUS COUNTRIES: LITERATURE REVIEW
Background: Medication error is one of the most common types of errors contributing to patient safety incidents in hospitals. In addition to their numerous cases and high costs, medication errors also contribute to deaths in various countries.
Aims: This study describes the incidence of medication errors in hospitals in various countries, determines the phase of errors that occurred the most, and describes preventive strategies for medication errors in hospitals.
Methods: This study was conducted between April 2021-July 2021 using the literature review method. Data were retrieved from ProQuest, ScienceDirect, PubMed, Google Scholar, and Garuda RistekBRIN. The data are generalized and extracted in a table based on the incidence of medication errors and preventive strategies.
Results: Of the eleven included studies, the incidence of medication errors in one study conducted in Nigeria was the highest (80%). Four of the eleven studies were conducted in India with varying incidence rates. Most errors occurred during the prescribing stage. The number of reports and the number of events actually have no relevance. It can be said that countries with a high number of reporting have good reporting indicators. Strategies for preventing medication errors include the implementation of an information system in the CPOE (Computerized Physician Order Entry) form and providing training for staff.
Conclusion: The difference in the incidence of medication errors in developing and developed economies can be attributed to factors in the healthcare system and the lower prescribing ratio and nurse ratio in developing countries.
Keywords: literature review, medication errors, patient safety
Aitken, M. and Gorokhovich, L. (2012) Advancing the responsible use of medicines. Applying levers for change. IMS Institute for Healthcare Informatics, p. 220. Available at: http://pharmanalyses.fr/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Advancing-Responsible-Use-of-Meds-Report-01-10-12.pdf.
Alsulami, Z., Conroy, S. and Choonara, I. (2013) ‘Medication errors in the Middle East countries : A systematic review of the literature', European Journal of Clinical Pharmacology, 69(4), pp. 995–1008. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00228-012-1435-y.
Anderson, J.G. and Abrahamson, K. (2017) ‘Your health care may kill you: Medical errors', Studies in Health Technology and Informatics, 234, pp. 13–17. Available at: https://doi.org/10.3233/978-1-61499-742-9-13.
Bryan, R. et al. (2021) ‘The problem of look"alike, sound"alike name errors: Drivers and solutions', British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology, 87(2), pp. 386–394. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1111/bcp.14285.
Dake, R. and Ramana, I.V. (2020) ‘A study on patient safety with reference to medication errors at a tertiary care hospital', (June), pp. 3–8. Available at: https://doi.org/10.18203/2319-2003.ijbcp20202948.
Dorothy, A. (2021) ‘Prevalence of Medication Errors and the Associated Factors : A Prospective Observational Study Among Cancer Patients at Mbarara Regional Referral Hospital', pp. 3739–3748.
Elliott, R.A. et al. (2019) ‘Economic analysis of the prevalence and clinical and economic burden of medication error in England', BMJ Quality and Safety, 30(2), pp. 96–105. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjqs-2019-010206.
Ernawati, D.K., Lee, Y.P. and Hughes, J.D. (2014) ‘Nature and frequency of medication errors in a geriatric ward: An Indonesian experience', Therapeutics and Clinical Risk Management, 10(1), pp. 413–421. Available at: https://doi.org/10.2147/TCRM.S61687.
Eslami, K. et al. (2019) ‘Identifying medication errors in neonatal intensive care units : a two-center study', pp. 6–8.
Fleming, S. (2009) ‘A literature review of the individual and systems factors that contribute to medication errors in nursing practice', Journal of Nursing Management, 17(679–697).
Gallagher, R.M. and Melnyk, D. (2020) The National Coordinating Council for Medication Error Reporting and Prevention: 25 Years of Building Medication Safety. The National Coordinating Council for Medication Error Reporting and Prevention. Available at: https://www.nccmerp.org/sites/default/files/nccmerp-25-year-report.pdf.
Johns Hopkins Medicine (2016) ‘Study Suggests Medical Errors Now Third Leading Cause of Death in the U.S.', Johns Hopkins Medicine, 3 May. Available at: https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/news/media/releases/study_suggests_medical_errors_now_third_leading_cause_of_death_in_the_us.
Kandasamy, G. et al. (2021) ‘A cross"sectional study on prescribing and dispensing errors at a corporate hospital in South India', International Journal of Clinical Practice, 75(9). Available at: https://doi.org/10.1111/ijcp.14489.
Khanna, R. and Yen, T. (2014) ‘Computerized Physician Order Entry: Promise, Perils, and Experience', The Neurohospitalist, 4(1), pp. 26–33. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1177/1941874413495701.
Mailman School of Public Health (2021) ‘India, Summary', Comparative Health Policy Library. Available at: https://www.publichealth.columbia.edu/research/others/comparative-health-policy-library/india-summary#OVERVIEW.
Moudgil, K. et al. (2021) ‘A Prospective Study on Medication Errors in an Intensive Care Unit', Turkish Journal of Pharmaceutical Sciences, 18(2), pp. 228–232. Available at: https://doi.org/10.4274/tjps.galenos.2020.95825.
Noguchi, C. et al. (2016) ‘Prevention of Medication Errors in Hospitalized Patients : The Japan Adverse Drug Events Study', Drug Safety, 39(11), pp. 1129–1137. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40264-016-0458-1.
Salmasi, S. et al. (2015) ‘Medication Errors in the Southeast Asian Countries : A Systematic Review', PLoS ONE, 10(9), pp. 1–19. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0136545.
Sandars, J. and Cook, G. (2007) ABC of Patient Safety, Blackwell Publishing: BMJI Books.
Snyder, H. (2019) ‘Literature review as a research methodology: An overview and guidelines', Journal of Business Research. Elsevier, 104(July), pp. 333–339.
Umoh, E.O. and Opue, B.O. (2021) ‘Knowledge and Attitude of Medication Error Among Nurses in Federal Neuro-Psychiatric Hospital, Calabar', Cognizance Journal of Multidisciplinary Studies, 1(6), pp. 20–44. Available at: https://doi.org/10.47760/cognizance.2021.v01i06.003.
United Nations (2020) World Economic Situation and Prospects 2020. Available at: https://doi.org/10.18356/ee1a3197-en.
WHO (2019) Patient safety. World Health Organization. Available at: https://www.who.int/news-room/facts-in-pictures/detail/patient-safety.
Yadhukrishnan, P.U. et al. (2020) ‘Monitoring and Evaluation of Medication Error in a Tertiary Care Hospital Abstract ':, 4142(2), pp. 16–20. Available at: https://doi.org/10.36346/sarjps.2020.v02i02.002.
Copyright (c) 2023 Anisa Eka Amalia, Masyitoh Basabih
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
1. As an author you (or your employer or institution) may do the following:
- make copies (print or electronic) of the article for your own personal use, including for your own classroom teaching use;
- make copies and distribute such copies (including through e-mail) of the article to research colleagues, for the personal use by such colleagues (but not commercially or systematically, e.g. via an e-mail list or list server);
- present the article at a meeting or conference and to distribute copies of the article to the delegates attending such meeting;
- for your employer, if the article is a ‘work for hire', made within the scope of your employment, your employer may use all or part of the information in the article for other intra-company use (e.g. training);
- retain patent and trademark rights and rights to any process, procedure, or article of manufacture described in the article;
- include the article in full or in part in a thesis or dissertation (provided that this is not to be published commercially);
- use the article or any part thereof in a printed compilation of your works, such as collected writings or lecture notes (subsequent to publication of the article in the journal); and prepare other derivative works, to extend the article into book-length form, or to otherwise re-use portions or excerpts in other works, with full acknowledgement of its original publication in the journal;
- may reproduce or authorize others to reproduce the article, material extracted from the article, or derivative works for the author's personal use or for company use, provided that the source and the copyright notice are indicated.
All copies, print or electronic, or other use of the paper or article must include the appropriate bibliographic citation for the article's publication in the journal.
2. Requests from third parties
Although authors are permitted to re-use all or portions of the article in other works, this does not include granting third-party requests for reprinting, republishing, or other types of re-use.
3. Author Online Use
- Personal Servers. Authors and/or their employers shall have the right to post the accepted version of articles pre-print version of the article, or revised personal version of the final text of the article (to reflect changes made in the peer review and editing process) on their own personal servers or the servers of their institutions or employers without permission from JAKI;
- Classroom or Internal Training Use. An author is expressly permitted to post any portion of the accepted version of his/her own articles on the author's personal web site or the servers of the author's institution or company in connection with the author's teaching, training, or work responsibilities, provided that the appropriate copyright, credit, and reuse notices appear prominently with the posted material. Examples of permitted uses are lecture materials, course packs, e-reserves, conference presentations, or in-house training courses;
