Abstract

VIEIRA DE MELO, V.; NEVES COSTA, M. S.  and  QUEIROZ SOARES, A.. Quality of prescription of high-alert medication and patient safety in pediatric emergency. Farm Hosp. [online]. 2014, vol.38, n.1, pp.9-17. ISSN 2171-8695.  https://dx.doi.org/10.7399/FH.2014.38.1.1097.

Objective: Verify the importance of compliance by prescribed doses of high-alert medications in unit of pediatric emergency in patient safety. Method: This was a cross-sectional descriptive study conducted in a unit of pediatric emergency, for March to April of 2012. This study included all prescriptions that contained at least one high-alert medication, excluding all of others. The data were analyzed using Microsoft Office Excel^® version 2007, and the study was approved by the Research Ethics Committee of the Hospital. Results: This study included prescriptions for 100 patients with a mean age of 5.2 ± 4.2 years. Were identified 983 (40.1%) high-alert medications (21 different), with predominance of injectable solutions (834, 84,8%), and of these 727 (73.95%) were electrolytes. The analysis of the dose was possible for 641 electrolytes and 104 non-electrolytes, being the dose inadequacies observed for some medications. Was observed concentration absent to 189 (18.9%) prescribed medications, these with liquid pharmaceutical form or aerosol. Was observed also the absence of maximum dose for 8 (36.3%) prescribed drugs "if necessary". Conclusión: The inadequacies of doses of high-alert medications identified in this study may compromise patient safety, demonstrating the importance of knowledge of multidisciplinary health care team by this subject, in this context, it is noteworthy that the acting of a clinical pharmacist together with the health multidisciplined team can contributes with the review of drug prescriptions, reducing potential errors and collaborating with patient safety.

Keywords : Pediatric Hospitals; Prescription drugs; Medication errors; Drug overdose; Patient safety.

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