PRESCRIPTION ERROR ANALYSIS IN A TERTIARY HEALTH CARE CENTRE, IN RURAL KARNATAKA, INDIA

Background: The focus of healthcare technology now, is to improve the quality of care and safety to the patients, a key component of which is medication-related errors. Medication errors result in an increase in the rate of hospital admissions and expenditure for the patient. Thus, it is important to identify the cause of these errors and develop a solution to curb their occurrence.

Materials &Methods:A prospective, cross-sectional study was conducted on 300 randomly collected prescriptions, in a tertiary care hospital, Kolar, for a period of 2months, after obtaining the Institutional Ethical Clearance. The prescription writing errors such as errors of Omission and Commission were documented.

Results: The data were analysed by using descriptive and inferential statistic.There were 93.7% omission errors (281 prescriptions), 66.3% of commission errors (199), and a total of 97.63% (292) of errors.

Conclusion:The prescribers and dispensers play an important role in prescription errors and early detection and timely intervention of these errors can increase the quality of care to the patients. The findings of this study can serve as a baseline for policymakers for monitoring drug therapy and improving the process. It also draws attention to prescribing practices from across the country and among other countries, all over the world.