THE UNITED REPUBLIC OF TANZANIA

MINISTRY OF HEALTH COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT, GENDER, ELDERLY AND

CHILDREN
TANGANYIKA MEDICAL TRAINING BOARD DIPLOMA IN PHARMACEUTICAL
SCIENCE
TABORA (E.A) POLYTECHNIC COLLEGE

(SEMISTER TWO)
ORDINARY DIPLOMA RESEARCH REPORT
TITTLE: ASSESSMENT ON THE FREQUENCY OF MEDICATION ERRORS TO
PEDIATRIC IN-PATIENTS AT KITETE HOSPITAL

STUDENT NAME ELMA ELLY DISHONI

REGISTRATION NO NS .1706/0021/2017
MODULE CODE PST06210
MODULE NAME OPERATIONAL RESEARCH
MODULE INSTRACTOR NAME MR. ISMAIL SAID BURUHANI
SUPERVISOR NAME PHARM SOSPETER KIWALO

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Table of Contents

DECLARATION AND COPYRIGHTS......................................................................................................v

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT...........................................................................................................................v

ABSTRACT................................................................................................................................................v

LIST OF ABBREVIATION.......................................................................................................................vi

1.0INTRODUCTION..................................................................................................................................1

1.1. BACKGROUND..............................................................................................................................1

1.2. LITERATURE REVIEW.................................................................................................................2

1.2.1. Theoretical literature review......................................................................................................2

1.2.2. Empirical literature review........................................................................................................2

CHAPTER TWO.........................................................................................................................................4

1.3. STATEMENT OF THE RESEARCH PROBLEM...........................................................................4

1.4 .RATIONALE OF THE STUDY.......................................................................................................4

1.5. HYPOTHESIS..................................................................................................................................4

1.6. RESEARCH QUESTIONS..............................................................................................................4

1.7. OBJECTIVES...................................................................................................................................4

1.7 .1. Main objective..........................................................................................................................4

1.7.2. The specific objectives...............................................................................................................4

1.8 LIMITATION AND DELIMITATION OF THE STUDY....................................................................4

1.8.1 Limitation of the study....................................................................................................................4

1.8.2 Delimitation of the study................................................................................................................5

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CHAPTER THREE.....................................................................................................................................6

2.0 METHODOLOGY............................................................................................................................6

2.1 FIELD OF STUDY...........................................................................................................................6

2.2 STUDY POPULATIONs..................................................................................................................6

2.3 STUDY DESIGN..............................................................................................................................6

2.4 TYPE OF DATA...............................................................................................................................6

2.5. METHOD OF DATA COLLECTION.............................................................................................6

2.5.1. Documentary review..................................................................................................................6

2.5.2. Data Collection Techniques and Tools......................................................................................6

2.6. DATA ANALYSIS..........................................................................................................................6

2.7 .RELIABILITY AND VALIDITY OF DATA..................................................................................7

2.7.1. Validity......................................................................................................................................7

2.7.2. Reliability..................................................................................................................................7

2.8. SAMPLING TECHNIQUE..............................................................................................................7

2.8.1. Sample size................................................................................................................................7

2.8.2 .Sampling techniques..................................................................................................................8

2.9. INCLUSION AND EXCLUSION CRITERIA.................................................................................8

2.9.1. Inclusion criteria........................................................................................................................8

2.9.2. Exclusion criteria.......................................................................................................................8

2.10. ETHICAL CONSIDERATION......................................................................................................8

CHAPTER FOUR.......................................................................................................................................9

3.0 RESEARCH FINDING AND DATA ANALYSIS...........................................................................9

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CHAPTER FIVE............................................................................................................................................14

4.0 DISCUSSION..................................................................................................................................14

4.1. CONCLUSIONS................................................................................................................................14

4.2. RECOMMANDATION.................................................................................................................14

5.0 REFERENCES....................................................................................................................................15

6.0 APPENDIXES.....................................................................................................................................16

6.1 INFORMED CONSET FORM........................................................................................................18

6.2 QUESTIONNAIRE.........................................................................................................................19

iv
DECLARATION AND COPYRIGHTS
I ELMA ELLY DISHONI solemnly I declare that this dissertation is my own original work and
to the best of knowledge it has not been presented anywhere by any person either in whole or
part for pharmaceutical technician

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
I thank Almighty God who helped me in every step in my studies. I delightedly extend my
heartfelt gratitude to all who viable contribution made me get encouraged and later realize a
great success in the process of preparing this research proposal. I am particularly grateful to my
supervisor for assist me with idea during preparation of research title

ABSTRACT
Medication errors represents real global public health problem which affecting patient safety and
may result in hospitalization, unnecessary costs, unnecessary treatment, and compromise patient
confidence in health care system. They occur at any stage of medication use process from
prescribing, dispensing and administration to the patient. Medication error is a common problem
facing health facility both in developed and developing countries cause of patient morbidity and
mortality. The consequences of such errors are more frequent and harmful in children as
compared to adults. The aim of this study is to assess the types and frequency of medication
errors in pediatric inpatients at Kitete Regional Hospital. Descriptive statistics will be used to
determine frequency, prevalence, mean and standard deviation of medication errors. The
quantitative data will be analyzed by using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences while
qualitative data collected will be analyzed through description. It is important to understand that
an analysis of medication errors can help healthcare professionals and managers identify scope
of medication errors and its consequences to patients A proper understanding of the contributing
factors that increase medication errors is the first step toward preventing them. This will helps
healthcare professionals to provide beneficial solutions that make improvements to prevent or
reduce the incidence of medication errors to patients. Continuing medical education such as
training of prescribers, dispensers and other health providers and comprehensive researches on
medication errors should be done to know more about it and improve the situations.

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LIST OF ABBREVIATION
CCF - Chronic cardiac failure
CEOs- Chief Executive Officer’s

CNS - Central Nervous System

ECG -Electrocardiography
ECHO -Echocardiogram
GI - Gastro Intestinal

IV - Intravenous

JAMA - Journal of the American Medical Association

ME - Medication errors

MSH -Management Science for Health

NCCMERP-National Coordinating Council for Medication Error Prevention and Control

NHS- National Health Service

SPSS- Statistical Package for Social Sciences

UK-United Kingdom

USA -United State of America

WHO - World Health Organization

STG – Standard Treatment Guideline

TPC- Tabora Polytechnic College

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1.0INTRODUCTION
1.1. BACKGROUND
Patient’s age is the major predisposing factor for medication errors (Otero et al., 2008).
Medication errors are potentially harmful to pediatric population compared to adults, particularly
neonates and infants because they have immature physiology thus differ in pharmacokinetic and
pharmacodynamic parameters. This increase risk to children to experience medication errors
consequences like adverse drug events, poor compliance and prolonged hospitalization, therefore
they need dosage adjustment to avoid these consequences.
Hospitalized children are more susceptible to experiencing complications of medication errors
than adults. The reason is that adult patients receive standard doses, whereas newborns and
children are medicated according to their body weight, surface area and medical condition. This
requires several calculations by the physician who writes the prescription, which increases the
likelihood of medication errors. Moreover, most medicines are intended for adults and are
presented as dosage forms that are in unsuitable for children. As a result, physician who assist
neonates and premature infants, have to adjust the dose for children based on the
pharmacokinetic parameters in order to reduce medication errors. This requires a number of steps
that increase the likelihood of mistakes (Otero et al., 2008).
Medication usage is a multistage process, which starts with the physician’s prescription,
followed by the review and provision of medications by a pharmacist, and ends with the
preparation and administration of the medication to the patient by pharmaceutical technician or
nurse (Khowaja et al., 2008). These multiple steps in the medication chain leads to significant
medication errors and overwhelming consequences for the patient like poor adherence for
prescribed medicines, poor therapy outcome and ineffective treatment ( Khowaja et al.,2008).
Patient safety must be the primary aim in every clinical setting so that to ensure compliance, this
will result an effective treatment and to achieve the desired outcome of therapy. Medication
errors have important implications for patient safety and their identification is a main target in
improving clinical practice errors including prevention of adverse events and improves patient’s
quality of life (Montesi et al., 2009).
The type and incidence of medication errors vary depending to populations and methods
employed to study the problem and thus many medication errors are probably undetected in
hospital setting. The occurrence of mediation error is a common problem of health facility in
both developing and developed countries and it has been attributed to many factors including
level of knowledge, communication skills, poor handwriting and experience of health workers
and workload (Bryony et al., 2002).The magnitude of medication errors remains a big challenge
in hospital setting.

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1.2. LITERATURE REVIEW
This part will involve different sources of literature from textbooks, scientific journals and
sometimes internet. Literature review is going to be divided into two parts that is theoretical
literature review and empirical literature review.
1.2.1. Theoretical literature review
Definition of Medication Errors (ME).The Unites State National Coordinating Council for
Medication Error Reporting and Prevention(NCCMERP, 2005).Defines a "medication error" as
"Any preventable event that may cause or lead to inappropriate medication use or patient harm
while the medication is in the control of the health care professional, patient, or consumer. Such
events may be related to professional practice, health care products, procedures, and systems,
including prescribing; order communication; product labeling, packaging, and nomenclature;
compounding; dispensing; distribution; administration; education; monitoring; and use."

1.2.2. Empirical literature review

This part of literature is explaining the different work which has been done by different
researchers concerning the same problem. Many researchers have gone through to assess the type
and frequency of medication errors to patients.
A prospective cohort study conducted at two urban teaching hospitals in United State of America
(USA), on medication errors and adverse drug events in pediatric inpatients detected 616 (5.7%)
medication errors of 10778 medication orders. Most of medication errors was dosing error
175(28%) followed by route 109(18%), medication administration record and transcription
85(14%), no or missing date74 (12%), and wrong frequency 58(9.4%). Among the drugs
involved in medication errors electrolytes and fluids 162(26%) followed by antibiotics
120(20%), analgesics and sedatives 101(16%), and bronchodilators 44 (7.1%). (Kahushal et al.,
2001).
A prospective cross sectional study conducted to reveal medication error rates at Baylor
University medical center, USA in 2004, in preparation for implementation of a computerized
physician order entry system, which tries to determine the source of medication errors and their
root causes, has found that baseline medication error rate was 111.4 per 1000 orders. Most
common were dosing errors (43.4 per 1000 orders), followed by frequency errors (19.7 per 1000
orders) and unavailable drug errors (12.8 per 1000 orders). Of the 113 total errors found, 52
(46%) had a transcription-based cause, that is., an error in inputting the handwritten physician
order into a computer system. System or process-related root causes (such as duplicate orders or
lack of crossover from one information system to another) accounted for 35.4% of the errors, and
prescribing based causes (such as wrong dosage or non formulary drugs) accounted for 18.6% of
errors (Seeley et at., 2004).
In a study that aimed to identify and quantify the most frequent prescription errors in inpatients’
medical prescriptions at Israelites Albert Einstein Hospital in Brazil , a total of 9.2% error was
found from prescriptions and among the total errors, the most frequent occurrences were lack of
information which includes dose and administration route, 18.2% and 7.2% respectively; 12.4%

2
of wrong transcriptions to the information system and 8.3% were due duplicate drugs, 6.6% due
to doses higher than recommended and 8.0% of prescriptions were with indication but not
specifying allergy (Silva, 2009).
A descriptive and retrospective study conducted to analyze and assess the drug prescription
patterns and errors in elderly outpatients attending public health care centers in Mexico City,
Mexico, potential prescription error was found to be high (53% of total prescriptions). Most of
the prescription errors were due to omissions of dosage, administration route, and length of
treatment and may potentially cause harm to the elderly outpatients (Rojo et al., 2009).
A pre intervention and post intervention cross-sectional study conducted on medication error in
department of pediatrics of the Hospital Italiano de Buenos Aires, a tertiary care University
Hospital found that omission of time of prescription 42%, error in dosing interval 22%, omission
of prescription 13%, wrong dosing 10% and illegible order 9% in prescription error.
Administration error included omission (dose not delivered directly to the patient) 47%, wrong
dosing 30%, wrong infusion rate 13%, wrong frequency 4% and wrong delivery 6% (Otero et al.,
2008).
In prospective study conducted at Muhimbili National Hospital (MNH) to determine the
incidence of medication errors among patients with Congestive Cardiac Failure (CCF) .It show
that incidence of medication error is fairly high. Of all 100 recruited patients, 71% have at least
one medication error. The pattern of Medication Errors (ME) suggests that prescription errors
were the major type of error. Of these prescription errors, errors leading to drug and drug
interactions (23%), drug with abnormal electrolyte interactions (22%) and drug of choice
appropriate to the condition not written (21%) are the most common. On time or complete
unavailability of laboratory results could be one of the sources of ME. About 25% of patients in
this study do not have test results despite of being ordered by prescriber (Mzale, 2012).
In a prospective study, which was conducted on the incidence of prescribing errors at an eye
Hospital in United Kingdom (UK), determine that 8% prescription sheets had errors. Out of
which 7% were errors of prescription writing while 1% was drug errors. The majority of errors
were made by junior doctors and no drug errors were made by senior doctors (Mandal et al.,
2005).
A study done across five hospital in the London area, UK to determine the incidence and nature
of prescribing and medication administration errors in pediatric inpatients by prospective review
of drug charts to identify prescribing errors and prospective observation of nurses preparing and
administering drugs to identify medication administration errors has found that 391 prescribing
errors giving an overall prescribing error rate of 13.2% of medication orders. Incomplete
prescriptions were the most common type of prescribing error, and dosing errors the third most
common.429 medication administration errors were identified; giving an overall incidence of
19.1% erroneous administrations. Errors in drug preparation were the most common, followed
by incorrect rates of intravenous administration (Ghaleb et al., 2010).

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CHAPTER TWO
1.3. STATEMENT OF THE RESEARCH PROBLEM
A medication error is not a new problem to the healthcare team (Thomas et al., 2000) and there
are studies that have investigated the adverse effects of medication errors that lead to death,
disability, morbidity and hospitalization (Coleman et al., 2002). In Tanzania very few studies
have been done on medication errors. Most studies done on medication error in different
countries showed that prescribing errors and administration errors were important errors to
consider in order improving the desired outcome of the therapy. (Poteet al., 2007)

1.4 .RATIONALE OF THE STUDY

Knowing the type and frequency of medication errors among the patients will help health care
providers to find the most beneficial options to minimize the rate of medication errors to patients
so that to improve the quality of life to patients.
1.5. HYPOTHESIS
Medication errors are not common to pediatric inpatients.
1.6. RESEARCH QUESTIONS
 What are the common causes of the medication errors at Kitete Regional Hospital?
 What are the effects of the medication errors to pediatric inpatients?
 What are the types of medication errors?
 What are solutions of medication errors to pediatric inpatient?

1.7. OBJECTIVES
1.7 .1. Main objective
To assess the frequency of medication errors to pediatric inpatients at Kitete Hospital.
1.7.2. The specific objectives
 To determine the possible causes of medication errors.
 To identify the possible types of medication errors to patients.
 To examine the effects of medication errors to the patient
 To find out the solution of medication errors at Kitete Hospital

1.8 LIMITATION AND DELIMITATION OF THE STUDY

1.8.1 Limitation of the study

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The following limitations of the study are expected to affect the research study include
insufficient funds, inadequate time of collecting data. All these will affect accuracy of the study.

1.8.2 Delimitation of the study

The delimitation of this study is recall bias.

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CHAPTER THREE

2.0 METHODOLOGY
It describes research design, study population sample, setting of the study, sampling procedure,
data collection method and tools, validity and reliability issues, plan for data analysis and ethical
considerations.
2.1 FIELD OF STUDY
The study will be conducted from April to July 2022at Kitete Hospital situated in Tabora Region.
2.2 STUDY POPULATIONs
The target population for study will be pediatric inpatients. This study included 100 pediatric
inpatients diagnosed with diseases.
2.3 STUDY DESIGN
A cross sectional study design will be utilized retrospectively from two years record which is
from May 2020 to May 2022 at Kitete Hospital to determine the type and frequency of
medication errors in pediatric inpatients.
2.4 TYPE OF DATA
Both primary and secondary data will be used in this study. Primary data will be collected from
pediatric inpatients (medical records) .Secondary data will be collected from various sources
include text books, journals and internet.
2.5. METHOD OF DATA COLLECTION
Observing/observation, Reviewing documents and questionnaire
2.5.1. Documentary review
Some data will be obtained from various documents such as reports, journals, reports, books and
surfing internet.
2.5.2. Data Collection Techniques and Tools
Data will be collected from medical records at health facility to assess the type and frequency
medication errors. Data that will be collected included medication name, dose, route, category of
drug, stage when error occurred and reason for error. Prescribing errors and dispensing errors
will be identified by comparison of prescribed and dispensed drugs with national Standard
Treatment Guideline (STG).
2.6. DATA ANALYSIS
Data will be edited, coded, entered to Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) windows
version 16.0 for analyzing data. Descriptive statistics will be used to determine frequency,
prevalence, means, and standard deviations of medication errors. Results also will be represented
by bar charts and graphs, which will be used for the interpretations and discussions.

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2.7 .RELIABILITY AND VALIDITY OF DATA
2.7.1. Validity
Pilot study will be done before actual study in order to test the validity and reliability of the
research instruments. Pilot study will be similar to those in the main study and will be done in
the similar settings, but they will not be included in the final study.
2.7.2. Reliability
A test is considered reliable if result will be the same repeatedly. In the development of the data
collection tool the concept of reliability will be considered.
2.8. SAMPLING TECHNIQUE
2.8.1. Sample size
To determine the number of medication records to be reviewed in assessing medication errors,
single population proportion formula will be used (Lwanga et al., 1991).The study sample size
will be 100 pediatrics inpatient’s prescriptions using the formula below:
n = Z2 P Q
d2
Where by:-
n=the number of medical records of pediatric patients to be sampled (sample size).
P=the proportion of medical records with medication errors (90%)
D=Standard Error 5%
Z= Constant, standard deviation =95% (1.96)

Hence, n=1.962× 0.9(1-0.9

0.0025
N=138 with approximation of 138
So the minimum sample size of respondent will be 138
For the case of data error 5% of the sample size will be added hence
1385%=6.9
138+7
N=145
Therefore, the minimum sample size was calculated to be 145 medical records will give 100
prescriptions will be recruited in this study.

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2.8.2 .Sampling techniques
Probability and non-probability sampling techniques to select the appropriate inpatient
prescriptions will be employed. But with non probability sampling, purposive sampling will be
used to get information from official leaders.
2.9. INCLUSION AND EXCLUSION CRITERIA
2.9.1. Inclusion criteria
The study will include pediatric inpatients age less than 15 years old (< 15years) who’s diagnosis
and confirmed to have diseases will be included in the study.
2.9.2. Exclusion criteria
The exclusion criteria will be those inpatients but not diagnosed with diseases and above fifteen
years old (>15 years).

2.10. ETHICAL CONSIDERATION

The study will be conducted after getting official permission from the ethics review committee
and communicates with Chief Executive Officer’s (CEOs) in the Hospital permission will be
given before conducting the data collection. All the instructions from Department of Research of
TPC will be adhered. However, all attentions will be observed and respected regarding their right
to privacy, protection from any harm resulted from the information given out in the field.
Assurance of no other use of the information given apart from the study purpose will be granted.
Further, in relation to ethics and confidentiality in research, the researcher will be responsible for
ensuring that information about the subjects and their responses remain confidential and that they
are used for no purpose other than the experiment for which it intends.

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CHAPTER FOUR
3.0 RESEARCH FINDING AND DATA ANALYSIS
In the study, the researcher collect information from patient’s cards and involved in this study
some prescribers including medical doctors and pharmacists of Kitete Hospital. The Hospital
found in Tabora region, on which medical doctors are involved in this study. Therefore the
researcher collect data and gathered information about the medication errors to pediatrics in-
patients which happened in hospital. For better presentation of findings on general information of
the respondents the tables were used to answer the questions of the research most are directed to
medical doctors together with other health workers and some of them through collecting
patient’s card and serving it

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TABLE 1.Show the frequency of medication error to pediatrics in-patient at Kitete Hospital
FREQUENCY PERCENTAGE%
Frequency of medication error
to pediatrics in-patients
Highly frequency 20 33
Middle frequency 25 41.7
Normal frequency 10 16.7
Low frequency 5 8.3
TOTAL 60 100
Causes of medication error to
pediatrics
Low level of education for 10 17
prescribers
Lack of experiences among 25 42
prescribers
Fatigue 5 8
Poor handwriting 20 33
TOTAL 60 100
Medication error management
to pediatrics
Highly managed 20 33
Middle managed 25 41.7
Normal managed 15 25
Low managed 5 8.3
TOTAL 60 100
Effects of medication error to
pediatrics
Allergy to pediatrics 20 33
Injury to pediatrics 25 42
Morbidity to pediatrics 5 8.3
Disability to pediatrics 5 8.3
Death to pediatrics 5 8.3
TOTAL 60 100
Working Experiences
0-4 Years 15 25
5-7 Years 30 50
8-10 Years 10 17
Above 10 years 5 8
TOTAL 60 100

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FIGURE 1: The bar graph Show Frequency of medication error to pediatrics

FREQUENCY OF MEDICATION ERROR

TO PEDIATRICS
120
100
80
60 FREQUENCY
PERCENTAGE
40
20
0
cy cy cy cy L
en en en en O TA
qu qu qu qu T
fre fre fre fre
ly al dl
e w
igh orm id Lo
H N M

Figure 1 show the frequency of medication error to pediatrics in-patient at Kitete Hospital that
occur mostly in normal frequency

FIGURE 2.Pie chart show causes of medication error to pediatrics

11
 Figure
CAUSES OF MEDICATION ERROR TO PE- 2 show
DIATRICS that the
most
Low level of education prescribers Lack of experience among prescriber causes
Fatigue Poor hand writing of

17%

33%

8% 42%

medication error to pediatrics in-patient at Kitete Hospital is occurred due to lack of experiences
among prescribers

FIGURE 3.The bar graph Show Management of medication error to pediatrics

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 Medication error menagement
45
40
35
30
Frequency
25
Parcentage
20
15
10
5
0
High menagement Normal Middle Low Menagement
Menagement Menagement

Figure 3 show that at Kitete Hospital there is normal management of medication error to
pediatrics in-patients

FIGURE 4.The line graph show Effect of medication error to pediatrics

effects of medication error to pediatrics

30
25
20
15
10
5
0
cs s cs cs cs
tri ric tri tri tri
di
a at di
a
di
a
di
a
di
pe pe pe pe pe
to o to to to
rg
y yt ty ty at
h
ur di ili
A lle In
j
rbi s ab De
o Di
M

13
Figure 5 show that the effects of medication error to pediatrics mostly were allergy and injury to
pediatrics and few were morbidity, disability and death to pediatrics

Figure 5. The Histogram showing work experience of health workers

Work experiences of health workers

35

30

25
frequency

20

15

10

0
0-4 Years 5-7 Years 8-10 Years Above 10 years
years

Figure 5 show most health workers have a work experience of between 5-7 years

CHAPTER FIVE
4.0 DISCUSSION
In this study the researcher wanted to assess the errors which occurred in hospital during
prescribing in prescription. The researcher decided to develop Objectives first to analyses causes
of medication errors, second to explore the effects of Medication errors to pediatrics in- patients,
third to examine the best measures to the effects faults or errors in the hospital.
From the findings discussed in chapter four on the issue of the effects of medication errors in
Tanzania hospitals especially in Kitete Hospital the findings revealed that more of the errors in
Medical treatment occurred due to the prescription and dispensing errors. The findings will
facilitate to solve problems which are happening to the prescription and dispensing.

4.1. CONCLUSIONS
Understanding the impacts of medication errors to pediatric inpatients in public health facility
will help to identify different strategies that will helps to reduce the rate of medication errors to
patients, reduce rate of morbidity and mortality, and improve patient quality of life. Not only that
but also help to reduce health care cost to the patients and patients will comply with medications

14
prescribed for effective treatment. The results of the study will be very beneficial to both patients
and health providers.

4.2. RECOMMANDATION
Based on the findings stated chapter four, researcher had come up with the following
recommendations of the study based on the research questions on which was about analyse the
effects of medication errors to the patients in Hospitals.
The researcher would recommends Hospitals should use electronic tools to detect errors in
medications even before the effects to the patients also to provide routine training to the
prescribers, employing prescribers with good education in medical prescription and good number
of prescribers and other health workers which is equivalent to patients will reduce fatigue to
medical doctors and other health workers in hospitals.

5.0 REFERENCES

1. Abdul Halim M. Mzale. (2012) Incidence and Types of Medication Errors in the
Management of In-patients with Chronic Cardiac Failure; a prospective study at
Muhimbili National Hospital, Dar es Salam.12-13.

2. Al-Jeraisy MI, Q Alanazi M, Abolfotouh MA.(2011) Medication prescribing errors in a

pediatric inpatient tertiary care setting in Saudi Arabia. BMC Research Notes 4:1-6.

3. Bryony Dean, Mike Schachter, Charles Vincent, Nick Barber (2002) Causes of
prescribing errors in hospital inpatients: a prospective study. Lancet; 359: 1373–78

4. Coleman et al. (2002). Cardiovascular Nursing, and Council on Stroke Acute Cardiac
Care, Council on Cardiopulmonary and Critical Care, Council on Scientific Statement

15
 From the Council on Clinical Cardiology Subcommittee on Medication Errors in Acute
Cardiac Care : Am Heart Ass ISSN: 1524-4539.

5. Coron-Rojo JA, Altagracia- Martínez A, KravzovJinich J, Vázquez Cervantes L,

Montoya Pérez E, Poo Rubio C. (2009) Potential prescription patterns and errors in
elderly adult patients attending public primary health care centers in Mexico City.
Clinical Interventions in Aging 4: 343-350.

6. DJP Williams (2007). Medication errors. JR Coll Physicians Edinb; 343-346.

6.0 APPENDIXES

This part will be filled by researcher

Annex IA: Data abstraction form for prescribing error

Name of the Hospital……………. Card no…………… Age ……………..Weight……….. Sex

M /F
Body surface area……. Height ……….Presence of prescriber signature Yes /No
1 Patient information Major diagnosis:

2 Prescribed medicines Date……….. Drug ………….Dose

……….Dosage forms ………….
Frequency……… Duration……………..
Date………… Drug……….. Dose……….
Dosage form ………….
Frequency ………..Duration………………….
Date………. Drug………… Dose
………..Dosage form ………………..
Frequency …………Duration………….
Date……….. Drug…………. Dose……….
Dosage form …………..

16
 Frequency………… Duration…………..
Date………. Drug ……….Dose……….
Dosage form ……………
Frequency…………. Duration ………………
Date…………… Drug …………Dose Dosage
form …………………
Frequency Duration………………
Discontinued date……… Discontinued drug
……………..
Discontinued date…………. Discontinued
drug ………………..

Name of data collector……………………………….

Signature………………………………………

Annex IB: Medication administration data collection format

Name of the Hospital ………………..Ward ………..Bed no ………..Sex ……….Age

…………..
Height ………….weight Body ……………Surface area………..
Diagnosis Date Administered
and
prescribed
drugs

Drug Dos Dosage Time

e form

17
6.1 INFORMED CONSET FORM

My name is ELMA ELLY DISHONI and I am a student from Tabora Polytechnic College am
conducting a study to ASSESS THE FREQUENCY OF MEDICATION ERRORS TO
PEDIATRIC INPATIENT AT KITETE HOSPITAL. The Research will be conducted in Tabora
region. This study is part of my course requirement, Participant for this study are health workers.
I would like to ask you some questions related to this study. I would be thanksfull to you if you
answer some questions which am going to ask you. The confidentiality and respect of your
involvement in this research will be assured

Participant Signature……………………..
Researcher signature…………………..
Date…………………………..

18
THANKS TOR YOUR PARTICIPATION

6.2 QUESTIONNAIRE
SAMPLE QUESTIONS TO BE APPLIED
INSTRUCTIONS
Answer all questions
Put tick (√ ) in the brackets
1. What are the frequency of medication errors in Kitete Hospital
a. Highly frequency { }
b. Normal frequency { }
c. Middle frequency { }
d. Low frequency { }

2. What are the causes of medication errors at Kitete Hospital?

a. Low education levels for prescriber { }

19
 b. Lack of experiences among the Prescribers { }
c. Low education levels dispenser { }
d. Lack of experiences among Dispenser { }
e. Low level of education among other health workers { }
f. Lack of experiences among other health workers { }
g. Fatigue { }
h. Poor handwriting for prescriber { }

3. How medication errors managed at Kitete Hospital.

a. Highly Managed { }
b. Normal Managed { }
c. Middle Managed { }
d. Low Managed { }

4. What are the effects of Medication errors to pediatrics

a. Allergy to pediatrics patients { }
b. Injury to pediatrics patients { }
c. Disability to pediatric patient { }
d. Morbidity to pediatric patients { }
e. Death of pediatrics patients { }

5. Working experience (How wrong have been working in Kitete Hospital)

a. 0-3 years { }
b. 4-6 years { }
c. 7-9 Years { }
d. Above 9 years { }

6. What is your professional at Kitete Hospital?

a. Medical Doctor { }
b. Clinician { }
c. Pharmacist { }
d. Pharmaceutical Technician { }
e. Nurse Officer { }
f. Nurse assistant { }

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g. Others { } Specify……………….

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