TY  - JOUR
PY  - 2014//
TI  - Out-of-hospital medication errors among young children in the United States, 2002-2012
JO  - Pediatrics
A1  - Smith, Maxwell D.
A1  - Spiller, Henry A.
A1  - Casavant, Marcel J.
A1  - Chounthirath, Thiphalak
A1  - Brophy, Todd J.
A1  - Xiang, Huiyun
SP  - 867
EP  - 876
VL  - 134
IS  - 5
N2  - OBJECTIVE: To investigate out-of-hospital medication errors among young children in the United States. <br><br>METHODS: Using data from the National Poison Database System, a retrospective analysis of out-of-hospital medication errors among children <6 years old from 2002 through 2012 was conducted. <br><br>RESULTS: During 2002-2012, 696 937 children <6 years experienced out-of-hospital medication errors, averaging 63 358 episodes per year, or 1 child every 8 minutes. The average annual rate of medication errors was 26.42 per 10 000 population. Cough and cold medication errors decreased significantly, whereas the number (42.9% increase) and rate (37.2% increase) of all other medication errors rose significantly during the 11-year study period. The number and rate of medication error events decreased with increasing child age, with children <1 year accounting for 25.2% of episodes. Analgesics (25.2%) were most commonly involved in medication errors, followed by cough and cold preparations (24.6%). Ingestion accounted for 96.2% of events, and 27.0% of medication errors were attributed to inadvertently taking or being given medication twice. Most (93.5%) cases were managed outside of a health care facility; 4.4% were treated and released from a health care facility; 0.4% were admitted to a non-critical care unit; 0.3% were admitted to a critical care unit; and 25 children died. <br><br>CONCLUSIONS: This is the first comprehensive study to evaluate the epidemiologic characteristics of out-of-hospital medication errors among children <6 years of age on a national level. Increased efforts are needed to prevent medication errors, especially those involving non-cough and cold preparations, among young children.<p />  <p>Language: en</p>
LA  - en
SN  - 0031-4005
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/10.1542/peds.2014-0309
ID  - ref1
ER  -