A Cross-Sectional Study on Role and Impact of Clinical Pharmacist in Identifying and Investigating the Causes of Medication Errors and Strategies to Prevent them through Patient Counselling in a Tertiary Care Hospital

Background: The causes of medication errors can be associated to different factors and such factors include professional practices, healthcare products, procedures, communication problems (e.g., prescribing, product labelling, packaging, and nomenclature), education, monitoring and inappropriate use of medications. Aim and objectives: The objective of the study is to determine the role and influence of a clinical pharmacist in recognizing and investigating the causes of medication errors, and putting up strategies to avoid them by counselling patients in a tertiary care hospital. Methods: This is a prospective, observational and cross-sectional study, which was carried out in the General Medicine Department in the ESI Hospital of Indiranagar, Bangalore and over a period of 6 months. On the inclusion criteria, a total of 189 inpatients were selected based on the inclusion criteria which were that the patients had to be within the age range of 15-75 years of age and willing to participate. The patients who had acute or chronic illnesses and were reported to have made medication errors were also eligible to participate in the study. Results: There were 189 patients of whom 147 were male and 42 were females. Antibiotics took up the second place in the sample population in terms of the percentage of medication errors (31.7), then anti-hypertensives (16.9), and anti-diabetics (15.8), with the other categories of drugs making less percentage of errors. Among 189 patients approximately 185(97.8) patients survived medication errors outcome and approximately 4(2.1) patients died because of medication error. Conclusion: It is among the first systematic reviews of the medication errors in Karnataka. Patient safety is at risk due to medication errors, which can be prevented. The results indicate the significance of the effective strategies, such as regular monitoring and educating patients, to minimize medication-related problems and enhance patient care. Independent double-checks, persistent monitoring, and patient counselling are some of the roles that clinical pharmacists play in order to detect and deal with medication errors. Their work has a great impact on the improvement of the healthcare outcome and minimization of the medication errors development. Also, the research defines various medication errors types and their frequency, which can be used in the specific preventive programs.