Reducing medication errors in Kuwaiti government hospitals through pharmacovigilance

Background: Reducing medication errors in Kuwaiti government hospitals through pharmacovigilance involves the improvement of medication management practices to achieve the desired outcome. Medication management practices were assessed and based upon the findings, training to enhance healthcare professional’s awareness was developed, and recommendations for improvement of medication safety practices to reduce medication errors through pharmacovigilance were made. Aim: The aim of the study was to investigate the extent of medication errors in the Kuwaiti government healthcare system, to gauge the healthcare professional’ awareness about medication safety culture and assess the healthcare professional’s attitudes towards medication error reporting. Methods and design: The study design included five distinct phases. A medical records/systems audit, for healthcare professionals an observation study, survey and development and piloting of a training package, plus the development of a framework for a medication error reporting and recording system. Results: The study revealed important findings at all five steps of the research process. The audit revealed that almost half of identified errors occurred during the prescribing stage (46.1%). The observation study of professionals revealed low compliance with basic standards of good practice such as (68%) updating patient information and (68%) double-checking prescribed medication. The professionals’ survey results revealed that (53.3%) were not aware of the existence of a medication error reporting system. The results of the training program implementation showed that (58%) of professionals indicated that they would like this training to be offered once a year and (39%) felt that the training session should last for at least one day. Finally, the study made recommendations with regards to the suggested algorithm for medication management process, clinical governance and a culturally safe reporting system. Conclusion: This multifaceted research study on reducing medication errors in Kuwaiti government hospitals through pharmacovigilance involved audits, observation studies, surveys, trainings, and the development of system recommendations for future enhancement in terms of recording systems, audit of reports, feedback to staff and development of an open, no blame, error-averse healthcare culture.

Name dc:type.qualificationname

PhD

Level dc:type.qualificationlevel

Doctoral

Grantor dc:publisher.institution

University of Wolverhampton

Year dc:date.issued

2021

Author dc:creator

• Saada, Mohammad

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Morrissey, Hana

• medication errors
• medication management
• clinical governance
• clinical vigilance
• incident reporting
• healthcare professional training

Statement dc:rights

• Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International

Licence

• https://wlv.dspace7.openrepository.com/bitstreams/1f6822a5-8f7a-4196-b1d7-4bfff31258d9/download