Prevention of Medication Errors in Pediatric Patients

Children are particularly sensitive group that should be considered in all efforts which aim to prevent the medication errors and to provide safe of medication administrations. The increased need for calculations, dilutions and manipulation of pediatric medicines, together with a need to dose on an individual patient basis using age, body weight and/or surface area, means that they are more prone to medication errors at each stage of the medicines management process. Consequently, the risk for being harmed due to medication errors in pediatrics may increase. Dose calculation errors are the most observed medication error type in pediatric and neonatal units. This type of error may occur because of nonexistence of commercial forms of medicine for children, packaging, labeling, prescription system, working conditions of profession or special characteristics of the professionals. Accordingly, when taking measures for minimizing the medication errors, all these effects and processes should be taken in to consideration. To decrease the medication administration errors, recommended precautions and practices for nurses included careful medication calculations, double-check of medications, informing the child and care giver about pediatric medication, reporting the medication errors, and arranging the working conditions to diminish the distractions. In this article, the most common medication administration errors and recommendations to prevent medication errors in pediatric patients were discussed