Abstract

LUGO R, GLADYS B. et al. Errors in outpatient prescriptions received in the internal pharmacy of a public assistance center. Rev.Cs.Farm. y Bioq [online]. 2018, vol.6, n.2, pp.51-62. ISSN 2310-0265.

Abstract Introduction: The prescription of one or several medications is part of a medical act and relates to the prescribing physician with other professionals. Errors in medical prescription are one of the mostfrequent causes of adverse events linked to health care. The errors that occur in that chain are potentially harmful to the patientand therefore should be prevented, avoided and corrected. Objective: To evaluate the errors in the prescriptions of outpatients who attended the Internal Pharmacy of a public assistance center from February to July of 2012. Methodology: Descriptive observational study of transverse section, with non-proba-bilistic sampling, for convenience, which con-sisted in the review of 437 prescriptions of outpatients that withdrew medications from the Internal Pharmacy of a public assistance center from February to July 2012. Results: The most frequent prescription errors found were the absence of specifications of the dose of the active ingredient (32%) and (23.5%) of prescription did not specified how the medication was supplied Of all requirements for the prescriptions by the Ministry of Public Health and Social Welfare in public hospitals in Paraguay, the lack of the patient's file number was the prevalent error (40.6%). The range of number of errors per prescription ranged from one to five. Almost half of the prescriptions presented at least one error and more than 20% did not present any. Conclusion: Although the problems detected did not cause harm to the patient, they could cause serious problems at the time of dispensing the drugs and confusion in the dispenser. Therefore, knowing the process of the prescription, since the doctor issues the order until the patient receives the medication, helps prevent them.

Keywords : prescription; prescription errors; prevention; pharmacy service.

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