Perpustakaan Digital ITB

Background and purpose: The prescribing of medicines is an essential skill required by doctors. For every prescribing decision the potential for benefit needs to be balanced against the risk of harm. The prescriber must use clinical knowledge skills based on patient’s pathology conditions. Prescribing errors are potentially preventable source of harm to patients and are therefore an important target for improvement. Method: This research was done retrospectively from the month of January to June 2014 in pharmacy department of one of the Malaysian government hospitals. All prescriptions received in six months were collected and only prescriptions with one or more errors would be evaluated. Result: Total prescription errors detected in six months were 1390 in which January(242), February(170), March(252), April (241), May(233), June(253). Percentage of error calculated and highest error was made in March and June 2014, 18.0% and average of 16.67% in six months time. The department which encountered the highest error was the medical department, 58.84% and lowest error in eye department, 3.23%. Inappropriate regime type of prescription error has contributed to most of the prescription errors in all months and in medical department. Conclusion: As the result, the total errors detected were 1390 out of 33891 prescriptions evaluated. Suggestion: A study to compare types as well as the frequency of prescribing error made by prescribers of other degree should be carried out to get a clearer picture on Malaysia prescribing errors epidemiology.