TY - JOUR T1 - Medication administration errors in Eastern Saudi Arabia JF - Saudi Medical Journal JO - Saudi Med J SP - 1257 LP - 1259 VL - 31 IS - 11 AU - Mir Sadat-Ali AU - Badar A. Al-Shafei AU - Rasha A. Al-Turki AU - Syed E. Ahmed AU - Salman A. Al-Abbas AU - Abdallah S. Al-Omran Y1 - 2010/11/01 UR - http://smj.org.sa/content/31/11/1257.abstract N2 - OBJECTIVE: To assess the prevalence and characteristics of medication errors (ME) in patients admitted to King Fahd University Hospital, Alkhobar, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.METHODS: Medication errors are documented by the nurses and physicians standard reporting forms (Hospital Based Incident Report). The study was carried out in King Fahd University Hospital, Alkhobar, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and all the incident reports were collected during the period from January 2008 to December 2009. The incident reports were analyzed for age, gender, nationality, nursing unit, and time where ME was reported. The data were analyzed and the statistical significance differences between groups were determined by Student's t-test, and p-values of <0.05 using confidence interval of 95% were considered significant.RESULTS: There were 38 ME reported for the study period. The youngest patient was 5 days and the oldest 70 years. There were 31 Saudis, and 7 non-Saudi patients involved. The most common error was missed medication, which was seen in 15 (39.5%) patients. Over 15 (39.5%) of errors occurred in 2 units (pediatric medicine, and obstetrics and gynecology). Nineteen (50%) of the errors occurred during the 3-11 pm shift.CONCLUSION: Our study shows that the prevalence of ME in our institution is low, in comparison with the world literature. This could be due to under reporting of the errors, and we believe that ME reporting should be made less punitive so that ME can be studied and preventive measures implemented. ER -