Objective: To analyse errors relating to the process of prescription, validation, preparation, dispensing and administration of cytostatic drugs, set out in the risk management programme regarding cytostatic drugs at our hospital.
Methods: Prospective, descriptive and cross-sectional study, of three-year duration (2003-2005) on the total number of errors reported in the chemotherapy risk management programme.The dosing of cytostatic drugs is centralised in the Pharmacy Department, which prepared an average of 12,966 cytostatic preparations per annum during the study period. The prescription validation procedure for chemotherapy is therefore centralised at the Pharmacy Department and is the responsibility of the area pharmacist who detects the majority of prescription errors and keeps a record of all the errors detected in the circuit. Most chemotherapy dosing errors are detected when the preparations are checked prior to dispensing. Pharmaceutical validation errors are detected in the clinical units after the checking of the prescription by the nursing staff and administration errors are gathered through voluntary communication by nursing staff or, occasionally, by the patients themselves. The classification used for errors "by error type" is in accordance with the Spanish adaptation of the National Coordinating Causal for Medication Error Reporting and Prevention prepared by Otero. The qualitative variables analysed were measured as rates and/or percentages.
Results: During the study period (between 2003-2005), 268 errors were reported, 87.91% of which were detected in the medical day hospital. An increase in errors was seen in 2005, affecting 13.91% of the patients as opposed to 6.69% and 4.81% in the years 2003 and 2004. The largest number of errors was reported by the nursing staff (54.08%) followed by the pharmacist with 39.55% and the doctor 4.47%. Prescription errors (45.14%) were the most frequent, followed by validation (33.58%) and preparation (16.41%) errors. Among the prescription errors, the greatest percentages correspond to underdosing (32.32%), overdosing (16.16%) and dose reversal (11.11%). A total of 11.94% (32) of these reached the patient and 88.06% were prevented.
Conclusions: The assessment of care practices and the critical, constructive analysis of the errors detected therein can be used as a tool that will enable the continuous improvement of procedures and the increased clinical safety of the patients. The collaboration of all the personnel involved in the circuits with known and shared objectives can enable a more exact dimension to be obtained of our current care situation in aspects for the clinical safety of patients.