Medication errors in the obstetrics emergency ward in a low resource setting.

Objective: To investigate the patterns of medication errors in the obstetric emergency ward in a low resource setting.

Material And Methods: This prospective observational study included 10,000 women who presented at the obstetric emergency ward, department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Menofyia University Hospital, Egypt between March and December 2010. All medications prescribed in the emergency ward were monitored for different types of errors. The head nurse in each shift was asked to monitor each pharmacologic order from the moment of prescribing till its administration. Retrospective review of the patients' charts and nurses' notes was carried out by the authors of this paper. Results were tabulated and statistically analyzed.

Results: A total of 1976 medication errors were detected. Administration errors were the commonest error reported. Omitted errors ranked second followed by unauthorized and prescription errors. Three administration errors resulted in three Cesareans were performed for fetal distress because of wrong doses of oxytocin infusion. The rest of errors did not cause patients harm but may have lead to an increase in monitoring. Most errors occurred during night shifts.

Conclusion: The availability of automated infusion pumps will probably decrease administration errors significantly. There is a need for more obstetricians and nurses during the nightshifts to minimize errors resulting from working under stressful conditions.