Interventions for reducing medication errors in children in hospital.

Background: Many hospitalised patients are affected by medication errors (MEs) that may cause discomfort, harm and even death. Children are at especially high risk of harm as the result of MEs because such errors are potentially more hazardous to them than to adults. Until now, interventions to reduce MEs have led to only limited improvements.

The incidence and nature of prescribing and medication administration errors in paediatric inpatients.

Objectives: To determine the incidence and nature of prescribing and medication administration errors in paediatric inpatients.

Design: Prospective review of drug charts to identify prescribing errors and prospective observation of nurses preparing and administering drugs to identify medication administration errors. In addition, incident reports were collected for each ward studied.

Defining off-label and unlicensed use of medicines for children: results of a Delphi survey.

The aim of this Delphi survey is to develop common definitions for unlicensed and off-label drug use in children to be used for research and regulatory purposes. After a literature review on the current status of unlicensed/off-label definitions, a two-stage, web-based Delphi survey was conducted among experts in Europe. Their opinion on concerns, rules and scenarios regarding the unlicensed and off-label use of medicines were obtained.

Electronic prescribing reduced prescribing errors in a pediatric renal outpatient clinic.

Objective: To assess the effect of an electronic prescribing (EP) system on the incidence and type of prescribing errors and the number of error-free visits.

Study Design: This was a before-and-after study conducted in a nephrology outpatient clinic at an acute tertiary care pediatric hospital.

Results: A total of 520 patients had 2242 items prescribed on 1141 prescriptions during the study period.

Systematic review of medication errors in pediatric patients.

Objective: To systematically locate and review studies that have investigated the incidence of medication errors (MEs) in pediatric inpatients and identify common errors.

Methods: A systematic search of studies related to MEs in children was performed using the following databases: MEDLINE (1951-April 2006), EMBASE (1966-April 2006), Pharm-line (1978-April 2006), International Pharmaceutical Abstracts (1970-April 2006), Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature (1982-April 2006), and British Nursing Index (1994-April 2006). Studies of the incidence and nature of MEs in pediatrics were included.

Incidence and nature of dosing errors in paediatric medications: a systematic review.

In paediatric medicine, drug doses are usually calculated individually based on the patient's age, weight and clinical condition. Therefore, there are increased opportunities for, and a relatively high risk of, dosing errors in this setting. Consequently, a systematic literature review using several databases was conducted to investigate the incidence and nature of dosing errors in children; 16 studies were found to be relevant.