Evaluation of medication errors in one of the largest public hospital: A retrospective study

Background: In hospitals, medication errors still occur, especially in developing countries such as Indonesia. However, most incidents can be prevented. Objective: To evaluate medication prescription errors for in and out-patients at hospitals based on pharmacists' reports of medical errors. Methods: A retrospective study was carried out between January and December 2021. Pharmacists analyzed medication error reports based on age, sex, drug name list or quantity recorded, prescription listed in the medication error report, and length of hospital stay. Statistical analysis of drug interaction and the factors affecting potential drug interactions was carried out by using multiple linear regression. Results: Approximately 338 medication errors from 251,491 prescriptions were recorded by pharmacists across hospital departments in 2021. The age of patients with medication errors ranged from newborn babies to 86 years old, with an average of 40.9 years old (±21.03). The most common types of medication errors were prescribing errors (184, 54.4 %). The average length of hospital stay was 11.35 days (±10.36). A total of 557 potential drug interactions were recorded in 182 (53.85 %) prescriptions. The risk for potential drug interaction is increased by the number of medications per prescription (COR = 3.361, P < 0.001) and the age (COR = 1.001, P = 0.033). Conclusions: The number of medication errors reported was 0.13 per 100 prescriptions, and most of these errors did not affect patients and were, therefore, not harmful. However, further research is needed to analyze medication error reports through collaboration with hospital healthcare professionals.