Abstract
Purpose: To assess pharmacy students’ knowledge of communicating medication errors in Karachi, Pakistan. Methods: The study design was cross-sectional and conducted from February to May 2014. A previously validated questionnaire was adopted, modified and distributed to final year pharmacy students in four universities of Karachi. Descriptive statistics were used to present students’ demographic information and their response to the questionnaire items. Pearson chi square test and Logistic regression model were executed to evaluate the association of gender and institution of students with their response. Results: Out of 600 survey questionnaires distributed, only 464 were returned in useable form, giving a response rate of 77.33 %. A majority of the students showed moderately positive attitude towards general communication and training in communicating medication errors. More than 40 % of the respondents were not satisfied with the training they received in communicating and reporting incidence of medication errors. Incorrect drug (14.65 %), incorrect dose (8.40 %) and improper storage of medicines (7.97 %) were the most common errors observed by the students during clerkship. Conclusion: The findings indicate the need for a more standardized approach to improving knowledge of medication errors as well as training in the communication of occurrence of medication errors. Keywords: Communication, Medication error, Pharmacy students, Standardized training
Highlights
An error occurring in drug prescribing, dispensing, administration, or monitoring is known as medication error [1]
This transversal study was conducted from February to May 2014 by adopting a prevalidated questionnaire distributed to senior pharmacy final-year pharmacy students of different private and public sector universities in Karachi
There was no earlier estimation regarding the knowledge of communication of medication errors in Pakistan
Summary
An error occurring in drug prescribing, dispensing, administration, or monitoring is known as medication error [1]. These errors range from minor discomfort to substantial morbidity that may prolong hospitalization or even lead to death among hospitalized and ambulatory patients [2]. Sources of medication errors include: excess work load, lack of professional competency, inappropriate training, rush at pharmacy, inadequate availability of patient information, poor communication, self administration of drugs by ambulatory patients etc [3]. The errors occur during prescribing, followed by drug administration, dispensing and transcription. Interventions in prescriptions by pharmacists can minimize the harms associated with poor prescribing of medicines
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