ArticleBMJ open2013
Cross-sectional study of prescribing errors in patients admitted to nine hospitals across North West England.
Article in BMJ open, 2013. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 33 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
33 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- An individual patient data meta-analysis on factors associated with adverse drug events in surgical and non-surgical inpatients.British journal of clinical pharmacology · 2015Pooled it
- Impact of Pharmacist Interventions in a Portuguese Hospital: A Study Using the CLEO Multidimensional Tool.Pharmacy (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Effectiveness of Six Sigma in Managing Medical Errors in the Electronic Drug Administration Record (EDAR) System.Cureus · 2025Article
- Prescription Audit in Outpatient Pharmacy of a Tertiary Care Referral Hospital in Haryana Using World Health Organization/International Network of Rational Use of Drugs (WHO/INRUD) Core Prescribing Indicators: A Step Towards Refining Drug Use and Patient Care.Pharmacy (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- A Snapshot of Potentially Inappropriate Prescriptions upon Pediatric Discharge in Oman.Pharmacy (Basel, Switzerland) · 2022Article
- Article
- A qualitative study of prescribing errors among multi-professional prescribers within an e-prescribing system.International journal of clinical pharmacy · 2021Article
- Associations of physicians' prescribing experience, work hours, and workload with prescription errors.Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association : JAMIA · 2021Article
- Psychometric Testing of Errors of Care Omission Survey: A New Tool on Patient Safety in Primary Care.Journal of patient safety · 2021Article
- Collaborative Medication Reviews to Identify Inappropriate Prescribing in Pre-Admission Medications at Emergency Department Short-Term Ward.Integrated pharmacy research & practice · 2021Article
- Prescribing errors in pediatric outpatient department at a tertiary care hospital in Malaysia.International journal of clinical pharmacy · 2020Observational
- Comparison of pharmacy technicians' and doctors' medication transcribing errors at hospital discharge.European journal of hospital pharmacy : science and practice · 2020Article
- Pharmacist-led, video-stimulated feedback to reduce prescribing errors in doctors-in-training: A mixed methods evaluation.British journal of clinical pharmacology · 2019Article
- Antibiotic Prescribing Practices and Errors among Hospitalized Pediatric Patients Suffering from Acute Respiratory Tract Infections: A Multicenter, Cross-Sectional Study in Pakistan.Medicina (Kaunas, Lithuania) · 2019Article
- Evaluation of Prescriptions Dispensed in the Outpatient Pharmacies of a University Teaching Hospital in Moshi, Kilimanjaro Region, Tanzania: A Cross-Sectional Study.The East African health research journal · 2019Article
- A prescription audit using the World Health Organization-recommended core drug use indicators in a rural hospital of Delhi.Journal of education and health promotion · 2019Article
- Clinical pharmacist interventions in managing drug-related problems in hospitalized patients with neurological diseases.International journal of clinical pharmacy · 2018Article
- Factors Associated With Burnout Among US Hospital Clinical Pharmacy Practitioners: Results of a Nationwide Pilot Survey.Hospital pharmacy · 2017Article
- The incidence and severity of errors in pharmacist-written discharge medication orders.International journal of clinical pharmacy · 2017Observational
- The frequency and nature of medication errors in hospitalized patients with acute coronary syndrome.International journal of clinical pharmacy · 2017Observational
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
13 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
objectiveTo evaluate the prevalence, type and severity of prescribing errors observed between grades of prescriber, ward area, admission or discharge and type of medication prescribed.
designWard-based clinical pharmacists prospectively documented prescribing errors at the point of clinically checking admission or discharge prescriptions. Error categories and severities were assigned at the point of data collection, and verified independently by the study team.
settingProspective study of nine diverse National Health Service hospitals in North West England, including teaching hospitals, district hospitals and specialist services for paediatrics, women and mental health.
resultsOf 4238 prescriptions evaluated, one or more error was observed in 1857 (43.8%) prescriptions, with a total of 3011 errors observed. Of these, 1264 (41.9%) were minor, 1629 (54.1%) were significant, 109 (3.6%) were serious and 9 (0.30%) were potentially life threatening. The majority of errors considered to be potentially lethal (n=9) were dosing errors (n=8), mostly relating to overdose (n=7). The rate of error was not significantly different between newly qualified doctors compared with junior, middle grade or senior doctors. Multivariable analyses revealed the strongest predictor of error was the number of items on a prescription (risk of error increased 14% for each additional item). We observed a high rate of error from medication omission, particularly among patients admitted acutely into hospital. Electronic prescribing systems could potentially have prevented up to a quarter of (but not all) errors.
conclusionsIn contrast to other studies, prescriber experience did not impact on overall error rate (although there were qualitative differences in error category). Given that multiple drug therapies are now the norm for many medical conditions, health systems should introduce and retain safeguards which detect and prevent error, in addition to continuing training and education, and migration to electronic prescribing systems.
Identifiers
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Registered trials
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