Identifying rates and risk factors for medication errors during hospitalization in the Australian Parkinson's disease population: a 3-year, multi-center study
Files
(Published version)
Date
2022
Authors
Bakker, M.
Johnson, M.E.
Corre, L.
Mill, D.N.
Li, X.
Woodman, R.J.
Johnson, J.L.
Editors
Yunusa, I.
Advisors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Type:
Journal article
Citation
PLoS ONE, 2022; 17(5, article no. e0267969):1-12
Statement of Responsibility
Conference Name
Abstract
Background Admission to hospital introduces risks for people with Parkinson’s disease in maintaining continuity of their highly individualized medication regimens, which increases their risk of medication errors. This is of particular concern as omitted medications and irregular dosing can cause an immediate increase in an individual’s symptoms as well as other adverse outcomes such as swallowing difficulties, aspiration pneumonia, frozen gait and even potentially fatal neuroleptic malignant type syndrome. Objective To determine the occurrence and identify factors that contribute to Parkinson’s medication errors in Australian hospitals. Methods A retrospective discharge diagnosis code search identified all admissions for people with Parkinson’s disease to three tertiary metropolitan hospitals in South Australia, Australia over a 3-year period. Of the 405 case notes reviewed 351 admissions met our inclusion criteria. Results Medication prescribing (30.5%) and administration (85%) errors during admission were extremely common, with the most frequent errors related to administration of levodopa preparations (83%). A higher levodopa equivalent dosage, patients with a modified swallowing status or nil by mouth order during admission, and patients who did not have a pharmacist led medication history within 24 hours of admission had significantly higher rates of medication errors. Conclusions This study identified 3 major independent factors that increased the risk of errors during medication management for people with Parkinson’s disease during hospitalization. Thus, targeting these areas for preventative interventions have the greatest chance of producing a clinically meaningful impact on the number of hospital medication errors occurring in the Parkinson’s population.
School/Discipline
Dissertation Note
Provenance
Description
Data source: Supporting information, https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0267969
Access Status
Rights
Copyright 2022 Bakker et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)