ArticleBMJ open2014
Prevalence, nature and predictors of prescribing errors in mental health hospitals: a prospective multicentre study.
Article in BMJ open, 2014. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 23 papers, 6 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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Who cites it
23 citing papers in PubMed, 6 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Patient safety incidents in the psychiatric inpatient setting: determinants, consequences, and strategies. A systematic review.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2025Pooled it
- Prevalence and solving strategies of drug-related problems in adult psychiatric inpatients - a systematic review.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2024Pooled it
- Medication errors in hospitals in the Middle East: a systematic review of prevalence, nature, severity and contributory factors.European journal of clinical pharmacology · 2019Pooled it
- [Staffing levels and patient-related outcomes : Systematic literature review on international evidence].Der Nervenarzt · 2019Pooled it
- Identifying potential prescribing safety indicators related to mental health disorders and medications: A systematic review.PloS one · 2019Pooled it
- Frequency and Nature of Medication Errors and Adverse Drug Events in Mental Health Hospitals: a Systematic Review.Drug safety · 2017Pooled it
- Mitigating risk in psychiatric hospital care for older adults by identifying adverse events with Global Trigger Tool for psychiatric patients.The International journal of risk & safety in medicine · 2026Article
- Optimizing long-acting injectable antipsychotic safety and care continuity through documentation best practices.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2025Review
- Medication Errors in Psychiatric Hospitals: A Nationwide Real-World Evidence Study in Saudi Arabia.Pharmaceuticals (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Article
- Med rec double check: Inpatient psychiatry medication errors identified on admission using Medicaid Web portals and electronic pharmaceutical claims data.The mental health clinician · 2024Article
- A Multi-method Exploratory Evaluation of a Service Designed to Improve Medication Safety for Patients with Monitored Dosage Systems Following Hospital Discharge.Drug safety · 2023Article
- The development and validation of a medicines optimisation tool to protect the physical health of people with severe mental illness (OPTIMISE).BMC psychiatry · 2022Review
- Clinical Pharmacy in Psychiatry: Towards Promoting Clinical Expertise in Psychopharmacology.Pharmacy (Basel, Switzerland) · 2021Review
- Article
- Associations of physicians' prescribing experience, work hours, and workload with prescription errors.Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association : JAMIA · 2021Article
- Medication-related incidents at 19 hospitals: A retrospective register study using incident reports.Nursing open · 2020Article
- Comparison of pharmacy technicians' and doctors' medication transcribing errors at hospital discharge.European journal of hospital pharmacy : science and practice · 2020Article
- Medication-related issues associated with the documentation and administration of long-acting injectable antipsychotics.International journal of clinical pharmacy · 2019Review
- The incidence and severity of errors in pharmacist-written discharge medication orders.International journal of clinical pharmacy · 2017Observational
- A collaborative evaluation of pharmacy interventions in the care of inpatients in community hospitals.European journal of hospital pharmacy : science and practice · 2016Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
7 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
objectiveTo determine the prevalence, nature and predictors of prescribing errors (PEs) in three mental health hospitals.
settingInpatient units in three National Health Service (NHS) mental health hospitals in the North West of England.
participantsTrained clinical pharmacists prospectively recorded the number of PEs in newly written or omitted prescription items screened during their routine work on 10 data collection days. A multidisciplinary panel reviewed PE data using established methods to confirm (1) the presence of a PE, (2) the type of PE and (3) whether errors were clinically relevant and likely to cause harm. PRIMARY OUTCOME MEASURES: Frequency, nature and predictors of PEs.
resultsOf 4427 screened prescription items, 281 were found to have one or more PEs (error rate 6.3% (95% CI 5.6 to 7.1%)). Multivariate analysis revealed that specialty trainees (OR 1.23 (1.01 to 1.51)) and staff grade psychiatrists (OR 1.50 (1.05 to 2.13)) were more likely to make PEs when compared to foundation year (FY) one doctors, and that specialty trainees and consultant psychiatrists were twice as likely to make clinically relevant PEs (OR 2.61 (2.11 to 3.22) and 2.03 (1.66 to 2.50), respectively) compared to FY one staff. Prescription items screened during the prescription chart rewrite (OR 0.52 (0.33 to 0.82)) or at discharge (OR 0.87 (0.79 to 0.97)) were less likely to be associated with PEs than items assessed during inpatient stay, although they were more likely to be associated with clinically relevant PEs (OR 2.27 (1.72 to 2.99) and 4.23 (3.68 to 4.87), respectively). Prescription items screened at hospital admission were five times more likely (OR 5.39 (2.72 to 10.69)) to be associated with clinically relevant errors than those screened during patient stay.
conclusionsPEs may be more common in mental health hospitals than previously reported and important targets to minimise these errors have been identified.
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