Study on determination of errors in prescription writing: A semi-electronic perspective.

BACKGROUND Prescription writing is one of the most important and basic skills that a doctor needs. Prescribing errors may have various detrimental consequences. Hence, the components of a prescription should be clearly written, free of drug related omission (incomplete prescription), commission (incorrect information) and integration errors, without nonofficial abbreviations, and fulfil the legal requirements of a prescription. Since errors of prescribing are the commonest form of avoidable medication errors, it is the most important target for improvement. OBJECTIVES To estimate the types and prevalence of medication errors during transcription. MATERIALS AND METHODS A cross sectional descriptive retrospective study was conducted at Nobel Medical Teaching Hospital, Biratnagar, Nepal during a time period from 15th November 2008 to 14th February 2009. A random sample of 268 prescriptions of patients written during a period of one year (18/06/2007 to 17/06/2008) for ten different medical out patient departments of the Hospital were reviewed and the analysis was carried out for determining the different types of errors in writing a prescription. RESULTS No error was found regarding the name, age, sex and address of the patients. The error in prescriptions regarding the prescriber's name, qualification, NMC registration number and signature were 85.4%, 99.6%, 99.6% and 15.7% respectively. Similarly, the symbol Rx was missing in 66.8%. Dosage form, quantity, dose, frequency and route of administration were not mentioned in 12%, 60%, 19%, 10% and 63% of the prescriptions respectively. Likewise, strength of the prescribed medicines was not stated in 40% of the cases. CONCLUSION There is a need to critically address the legibility of prescription, correct spelling of drugs, authorised abbreviations and all other informations of a prescription concerned with patient, prescriber and drugs to minimise the occurrence of medication errors.