Pharmacy’s staff opinion on prescribing errors made by doctors in Seberang Jaya Hospital, Pulau Pinang / Nur Zahirah Mohd Zahir, Norhaslinda Noordin and Norazwanie Azimi

Introduction: Prescribing errors primarily occur due to inadequate knowledge and unavailability or failure to recognise important patient information or drug properties during prescription screening process. Methodology: This study was conducted in OPD, Hospital Seberang Jaya. A cross-sectional study by random sampling was chosen to conduct this project. Our study samples were prescriptions that contain errors and pharmacy staff working in OPD from July 2010 until September 2010. The criteria include all prescriptions that have errors regardless of age, race and gender. Non error prescriptions and other population in pharmacy department such as trainees were excluded in this study. Data were statistically analysed and presented in a form of table, pie chart and graph. Result: The total amount of prescribing errors are n=252. The incomplete prescription errors were contributed by no sign and chop from the prescriber (n=56), not stated the date and patient’s data (n=33) and do not countersign the List A item by the specialist (n=77). Inappropriate drug regime contributed by no duration of prescription (n=15), not stated the dose of drug (27) and no frequency to take the drug (n=16). Inappropriate prescription contributed to the lowest errors made through wrong spelling or use abbreviation (n=16), polypharmacy prescription (n=10) and prescription with drug interaction (n=2). Conclusion: The most common categories of prescribing errors followed by inappropriate drug regime and inappropriate prescription. The more alert the prescribers, the less pharmacy staff workload and patient waiting time will be reduce.