A study, carried out in 2005 by the Univeristy of London involving a children's hospital, 3 general teaching hospital and 1 non-teaching hospital in London, looked at prescription errors given to children in hospital. The study was published in Archives of Disease in Childhood.
During the study, pharmacists found 391 prescription errors and 429 administration errors in the 3000 prescriptions they exmined over a 2-week period. Errors included incomplete prescriptions, wrong dose, how the drugs should be prepared or how they should given to the patients. One mistake was picked up by the nurse, on 5 occasions, the researchers intervened to prevent the patient suffering the harm.
The researchers believe that their findings show a general picture across Britain and still stand today. The author said prescribing for children is very difficult because most drugs are formualted for adults, doctors have to calculate the dose for children. Much more needs to be done to improve prescribing to children.
They call for better education for doctors on prescription skills and electronic prescribing to be introduced in hospitals. See also post on GMC study on prescription errors in hospitals.
Source: "Minimising medication errors in children”Archives of Disease in Childhood 2009 ;94:161-164
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