Medication Errors: An Update From the Central Region of Ghana

Objective: The study assessed the following medication error indicators: drug education by pharmacists, the clarity of physician prescription forms, patients’ and students’ drug package insert (PI) reading habits, and the adequacy of information on drug PIs.

Design: A cross-sectional study was carried out. One-on-one interviews were conducted with the pharmacists alongside the use of structured questionnaires to assess their involvement in drug education and experience with the clarity of physician prescription forms. A structured questionnaire was used to investigate patients’ and students’ PI reading habits. Drug PIs were collected from pharmacies, and their components were examined based on the World Health Organization’s (WHO) criteria for labeling pharmaceutical products.

Setting: The study was conducted at four selected hospital pharmacies, four community pharmacies, and the University of Cape Coast, in the Cape Coast Metropolis, Ghana.

Participants: The study included pharmacists working at the pharmacies, patients, and students of the University of Cape Coast, who visited any of these pharmacies.

Results: Fifty-three percent of pharmacists educate their patients on drug dosage, storage, and precautions during each patient visit, 17.6% hardly do, and 29.4% do not educate their patients. A majority of the sampled prescription forms submitted by patients to the pharmacists had illegible handwriting (63.7%) and unconventional prescription notations (78.0%). Of the 138 visiting patients, only a few (41.0%) read the PIs before drug use as compared to students (72.9%). Out of the 88 PIs collected, 90.2% had component deficiencies.

Conclusion: Pharmacists’ drug education to visiting patients was poor, just as patients’ PI reading habits. Most PIs had component deficiencies, and the majority of prescription forms had some medication error-provoking features. Going forward, pharmacists, physicians, drug manufacturers, and patients must perform their responsibilities toward the collective effort of minimizing medication errors associated with drug use.