This article is more than 5 years old. Information may no longer be current.
Medication errors in children significantly increased over 10 years
From 2002 to 2012, there was a significant increase in non-cough and cold medication errors among children aged younger than 6 years, according to study findings published in Pediatrics.
Maxwell D. Smith, of Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus, Ohio, and colleagues analyzed data from the National Poison Data System to determine out-of-hospital unintentional therapeutic pharmaceutical errors among US children aged younger than 6 years from 2002 through 2012.
During the study period, US poison control centers reported 696,937 out-of-hospital medication error exposures among children aged younger than 6 years, yielding an average of 63,358 exposures per year.
Analgesics accounted for 25.2% of medication errors, cough and cold preparations accounted for 24.6%, antihistamines for 15% and antimicrobial agents for 11.8%.
The number of substances involved in each exposure ranged from one to 11, according to researchers. Nearly 94% of all exposures were single-substance exposures, and 6.1% were two-substance exposures.
Incidence of reported medication errors varied seasonally, peaking during the winter. This trend may have been significantly influenced by seasonal variation in cough and cold medication errors, according to researchers. Analgesics, asthma therapies, hormones, antimicrobial agents, and eye/ear/nose/throat preparations experienced the same seasonal pattern.
Medication errors and rates were negatively associated with child age. Approximately 25.2% of exposures occurred in children aged younger than 1 year, and 9.7% of exposures occurred in children aged 5 years. Children younger than 1 year had a medication error rate of 39.64 per 10,000 population, compared with 15.45 per 10,000 population among children aged 5 years.
Liquid formulations accounted for the majority of medication errors (81.9%), and tablets/capsules/caplets accounted for 14.9%. Almost all errors that occurred among children aged younger than 1 year (91.7%) involved liquid formulations, compared with 63.1% among children aged 5 years.
“Inadvertently taking or being given medication twice” was the most common reported reason for medication error, accounting for 27%, followed by “other incorrect dose” (17.8%), “confused units of measure” (8.2%), and “wrong medication taken or given” (7.8%). “Confused units of measure” and “wrong medication taken or given” were increasingly reported as reasons for medication error, while “inadvertently taking or being given medicine twice” decreased over time.
From 2002 through 2012, the number and rate of non-cough and cold medication errors increased from 42.9% (P<.001) and 37.2% (P<.001)
Cough and cold medication errors did not significantly change from 2002 through 2005; however, the number and rate of cough and cold medication errors decreased by 66.1% (P<.001) and 66.6% (P<.001) during that time. This may be due to a significant decrease in medication errors and rates among children aged younger than 4 years during the same time period, according to researchers.
“Learning from the success in decreasing cough and cold medication errors, increased efforts are needed to prevent non-cough and cold medication errors among young children,” the researchers wrote.
Disclosure: The researchers report no relevant financial disclosures.
