Medication Error Identification Rates of Pharmacy, Medical, and Nursing Students: A Simulation

Abstract

OBJECTIVES: To assess the ability of pharmacy, medicine, and nursing students to identify prescribing errors METHODS: Pharmacy, medicine, and nursing students from the University of Arizona were asked to participate in this prospective, descriptive study. Pharmacy and medical students in the last didactic year of their program and traditional bachelor of nursing students in the fourth semester of their program were eligible to participate. Subjects were asked to assess a questionnaire containing three sample prescriptions, evaluate if each was correct and indicate the type of error found, if any. The primary outcome measure was the number of correctly identified prescribing errors. The secondary outcome measure was the number of correct types of error found. Error identification rates for each group were calculated. Comparisons in these rates were made between pharmacy, medicine and nursing students. Chi square tests were used to analyze the nominal data gathered from various groups. RESULTS: Pharmacy students were significantly better able to identify errors than medical and nursing students (p<0.001). Pharmacy students were significantly better able to determine the type of error (p<0.001). CONCLUSIONS: Overall, pharmacy students had higher prescribing error identification rates than medical and nursing students. More studies need to be done to determine the most appropriate way to increase prescribing error identification rates.