ArticlePharmacy practice
Dispensing errors in community pharmacies in the United Arab Emirates: investigating incidence, types, severity, and causes.
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Who cites it
16 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 39 citations in OpenAlex.
- Medication errors in community pharmacies: a systematic review of the international literature.PloS one · 2025Pooled it
- Assessing community pharmacists' practices and strategies to minimize medication dispensing errors: a Jordanian study.Journal of pharmaceutical policy and practice · 2026Article
- The Role of Artificial Intelligence in Reducing Dispensing Errors for Patient Safety and Quality: A Systems Approach.Risk management and healthcare policy · 2026Article
- Meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials of electronic health interventions to reduce medication errors.NPJ digital medicine · 2025Article
- Developing a medication safety self-assessment tool for high-alert medications in community pharmacies.Exploratory research in clinical and social pharmacy · 2025Article
- Descriptive analysis of the national drug adverse events (AEs) database in Lebanon.Journal of pharmaceutical policy and practice · 2025Article
- Trends in dispensing errors reported in Finnish community pharmacies in 2015-2020: a national retrospective register-based study.BMC primary care · 2024Article
- Patient-centric decision-making in supplements intake and disclosure in clinical practice: a novel SIDP-12 tool to prevent drug-supplement interaction.Therapeutic advances in drug safety · 2024Article
- Detection and Prevention of Medication Errors by the Network of Sentinel Pharmacies in a Southern European Region.Journal of clinical medicine · 2022Article
- The Impact of International Nonproprietary Names Integration on Prescribing Reimbursement Medicines for Arterial Hypertension and Analysis of Medication Errors in Latvia.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2022Article
- Prescriptions as quality indicators of pharmaceutical services in Polish community pharmacies.BMC health services research · 2022Article
- Current views of community and hospital pharmacists on pharmaceutical care services in the United Arab Emirates: A mixed methodological study.F1000Research · 2022Article
- Impact of Clinical Pharmacist Interventions in Prescribing Errors in Hospitalized Diabetic Patients with Major Polypharmacy.Hospital pharmacy · 2021Article
- Assessment of Extrapyramidal Symptoms Associated with Psychotropics Pharmacological Treatments, and Associated Risk Factors.Clinical practice and epidemiology in mental health : CP & EMH · 2021Article
- Community Pharmacy Dispensing Errors: A Comprehensive Systematic Review on Trends and Solutions.Journal of research in pharmacy practiceReview
- Dispensing errors in Lebanese community pharmacies: incidence, types, underlying causes, and associated factors.Pharmacy practiceArticle
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
4 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundMedication dispensing is a fundamental function of community pharmacies, and errors that occur during the dispensing process are a major threat to patient safety. However, to date there has been no national study of medication dispensing errors in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
objectiveThe study aimed to investigate the incidence, types, clinical significance, causes and predictors of medication dispensing errors.
methodsThe study was conducted in randomly selected community pharmacies (n=350) across all regions of UAE over six months using a mixed-method approach, incorporating prospective disguised observation of dispensing errors and interviews with pharmacists regarding the causes of errors. A multidisciplinary committee, which included an otolaryngologist, a general practitioner and a clinical pharmacist, evaluated the severity of errors. SPSS (Version 26) was used for data analysis.
resultsThe overall rate of medication dispensing errors was 6.7% (n=30912/ 464222), of which 2.6% (n=12274/464222) were prescription-related errors and 4.1% (n= 18638/464222) pharmacist counselling errors. The most common type of prescription-related errors was wrong quantity (30.0%), whereas the most common pharmacist counselling error was wrong drug (32.1%). The majority of errors were caused by medicine replaced with near expire one (24.7%) followed by look-alike/sound-alike drugs (22.3%). The majority of errors were moderate (46.8%) and minor (44.5%); 8.7% were serious errors. Predictors of medication dispensing errors were: grade A pharmacies (dispensing ≥ 60 prescriptions a day (OR 2.1; 95%CI 1.4-3.6; p=0.03) and prescriptions containing ≥4 medication orders (OR 2.5; 95%CI 1.7-4.3; p=0.01).
conclusionsMedication dispensing errors are common in the UAE and our findings can be generalised and considered as a reference to launch training programmes on safe medication dispensing practice.
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