A study of medication errors during the prescription stage in the pediatric critical care services of a secondary-tertiary level public hospital

Table 1 Characteristics of medication orders in the pediatric critical care services

Pediatric Service	Orders, n	Prescriptions (drugs), n	Prescriptions/order (P/O)	Type of medication order, n (%)			Illegible medication orders^a, n (%)	Amendments, n (%)
Pediatric Service	Orders, n	Prescriptions (drugs), n	Prescriptions/order (P/O)	Hand-written	Digital	Combined^b	Illegible medication orders^a, n (%)	Total	Legible	Illegible
PEC	88	715	8.1	0	27	61	7 (7.9)	8 (9.1)	7	1
PICU	66	1013	15.3	0	17	49	8 (12.1)	12 (17.6)	11	1
NICU	68	332	4.9	0	35	33	7 (10.2)	12 (17.6)	11	1
NIMCU	79	287	3.6	1	49	29	3 (3.8)	3 (3.8)	3	0
TOTAL	301	2347	7.8	1 (0.4)	128 (42.5)	172 (57.1)	25 (8.3)	35 (11.6)	32	3

D Drug, I Indication, NICU Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, NIMCU Neonatal Intermediate Care Unit, PEC Pediatric Emergency Care, PICU Pediatric Intensive Care Unit, P Prescription
^a Illegible medication orders would require a clarification from the attending physician to follow the therapeutic indication
^b Combined medication orders (handwritten + digital)

ISSN: 1471-2431