Table 3 Prevalence and severity of prescribing errors identified from pharmacotherapeutic assessment
Type of Prescribing Errors (PEs) [22] | Absolute number of PEs introduced during hospitalization | Absolute number of PEs introduced after discharge | Total number of PEs | Total number of patients experiencing patient harm according to the EMA classification ‡ | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Unintentional discrepancies [23] | between CMA* and CMD** | between CMD** and CMP*** | |||
Unintentional initiation of a drug | 30 | 4 | 34 | 5 | |
Unintentional omission of a drug | 18 | 9 | 27 | 3 | |
Unintentional switch of a drug within the same ATC-group | 1 | 2 | 3 | Δ | |
Unintentional dosage change | 5 | 3 | 8 | Δ | |
Total number of unintentional discrepancies | 54 | 18 | 72 (100%) | Δ | |
Inappropriate medication use | |||||
Core outcome [24] | Specification | ||||
Underuse | Incomplete pharmacotherapy according to relevant guideline or protocol | 0 | 6 | 6 | 1 |
Incorrect duration (too short) of prescribed drug therapy | 0 | 1 | 1 | Δ | |
Overuse | Drug continued despite no indication (anymore) (desprescribing) | 3 | 3 | 6 | Δ |
(Pseudo) drug duplication | 1 | 0 | 1 | Δ | |
No, unknown or incorrect indication of a drug | 0 | 1 | 1 | Δ | |
– | Incorrect dosing - Under- or overdosing - Incorrect dosing frequency | 3 | 3 | 6 | 1 |
Potentially inappropriate medications | Drug should be discontinued due to an adverse drug event (ADE), intoleration or contraindication | 2 | 0 | 2 | 2 |
Total number of inappropriate medications | 9 (13.4%) | 14 (20.9%) | 67 (100%) †| Δ | |
Total number of PEs | 63 (45.3%) | 32 (23.0%) | 139 (100%) †| Δ | |