Nineteen per cent of paediatric inpatient medication orders were associated with administration errors and 13.2% had prescribing errors in five London hospitals
- University of Manchester, Manchester, UK
- Correspondence to Jason Hall
Stopford Building, Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9PT, UK; jason.hall{at}manchester.ac.uk
- Published Online First 5 August 2010
The context
It is known that errors in prescribing medications for hospital inpatients are relatively common1 (8.9% of prescribed items). In addition, it is estimated that around 1–2% of adult patients are harmed by medication errors.2 Much less is known about the prevalence of medication errors in paediatric prescribing in the UK, but a US study suggests the prevalence of medication errors could be higher for paediatric patients as many drugs are unlicensed or used off-label.3
Outline and results
This study took place in paediatric wards in five hospitals in the UK (one specialist children's hospital, three teaching hospitals and one non-teaching hospital). There were two parts to this study. The first part involved a prospective review of drug charts in 11 wards and the second …
