Article Text
Prevalence
Cohort study
Nineteen per cent of paediatric inpatient medication orders were associated with administration errors and 13.2% had prescribing errors in five London hospitals
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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 …
Footnotes
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Competing interests None.