Tropical Journal of Pharmaceutical Research

Original Research Article | OPEN ACCESS

Healthcare professionals consensus on prescribing errors in hospital settings in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

Mansour Adam Mahmoud¹ , Mohamed Azmi Hassali², Hisham Aljadhey³, Sultan Saad Al Thagfan¹

¹College of Pharmacy, Department of Clinical and Hospital Pharmacy, Taibah University, PO Box 344, Alamadinah Almunawarah, 30001, Saudi Arabia; ²Discipline of Social and Administrative Pharmacy, School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Universiti Sains Malaysia, Penang, Malaysia; ³Saudi Food and Drug Authority, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

For correspondence:- Mansour Mahmoud Email: mammm.99@gmail.com

Accepted: 21 September 2018 Published: 31 October 2018

Citation: Mahmoud MA, Hassali MA, Aljadhey H, Thagfan SS. Healthcare professionals consensus on prescribing errors in hospital settings in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Trop J Pharm Res 2018; 17(10):2079-2086 doi: 10.4314/tjpr.v17i10.27

© 2018 The authors.
This is an Open Access article that uses a funding model which does not charge readers or their institutions for access and distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0) and the Budapest Open Access Initiative (http://www.budapestopenaccessinitiative.org/read), which permit unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited..

Abstract

Purpose: To create a consensus on definition and scenarios of prescribing errors in Saudi Arabia hospital practice.

Methods: A two-round Delphi technique was used to reach a consensus on a definition and 42 scenarios of prescribing errors. Thirty-five evaluators (healthcare professionals) were asked to indicate the extent to which they agree or disagree with the definition and scenarios of prescribing errors in a score of 1 (“total disagreement”) to 9 (“total agreement”) and were given a space to comment or modify the content of the survey.

Results: The study tool was initially given to 35 evaluators of whom 31 (88.6 %) responded in the first round. In the second round only 24 (77.4 %) evaluators responded. A consensus was reached to accept the definition of prescribing error modified from a previous study conducted in the UK. Regarding the types of prescribing errors, a consensus was reached to include 34 scenarios, to exclude 5 scenarios and to include 3 scenarios depending on the individual clinical situation.

Conclusion: The evaluators agreed to the definition of prescribing errors developed in the United Kingdom (UK) with minor modifications. However, some types of prescribing errors might be considered as errors in Saudi Arabia but not in the UK and vice versa. It is anticipated that this definition could be utilized in future studies, particularly in Saudi Arabia, and act as a guide for future research on prescribing errors.

Keywords: Prescribing error scenario, Hospital settings, Consensus, Delphi technique