One In 15 Children Harmed By Drug Overdose, Adverse Reaction While Hospitalized, Study Find

Main Category: Pediatrics / Children's Health
Also Included In: Public Health
Article Date: 08 Apr 2008 - 10:00 PST

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One out of every 15 hospitalized children, or about 540,000 annually, are harmed by a drug mistake or adverse reaction while receiving care, according to a study published on Monday in the April issue of the journal Pediatrics, the AP/Houston Chronicle reports. For the study, lead author Paul Sharek, medical director of quality at Stanford University's Lucile Packard Children's Hospital, and colleagues randomly selected charts of 960 children at 12 children's hospitals across the nation in 2002. The researchers used the new method of detecting errors, which looks for 15 "triggers" on young patients' charts, such as use of specific drug overdose antidotes, suspicious side effects and use of certain laboratory tests.

The study found that 11 out of every 100 hospitalized children experienced a drug mistake or adverse reaction, a rate that indicates some children experienced more than one drug treatment error. Earlier estimates found that two out of 100 hospitalized children experienced an adverse drug reaction or mistake. The new system for detecting errors showed a much higher percentage of mistakes than traditional methods such as nonspecific patient chart reviews or voluntary reporting. According to the AP/Chronicle, relying on voluntary reporting of adverse events or drug mistakes in children had found less than 4% of the mistakes identified by the study's method.

The study found that 22% of the events were considered preventable, but most were relatively mild and none were fatal or caused permanent damage. The researchers said that the findings show a need for "aggressive, evidence-based prevention strategies to decrease the substantial risk for medication-related harm to our pediatric inpatient population" (Tanner, AP/Houston Chronicle, 4/7).

An abstract of the study is available online.

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