Non compliance on prescription writing requirements and prescribing errors in an Out Patient Department of Hospital Raja Permaisuri Bainun (HRPB), Ipoh Perak

Medication error is unintended act either of omission or act does not achieve its unintended outcome. Prescribing falls under one of the categories of medication error. When there is an error in prescribing, it will be due to prescription error. Prescription is a kind of paper slip written by physician for appropriate medication to be dispenses to the patient. This prescription contains all the important information. Errors of omission and error of commission should be avoided. Therefore, our aim from this research is to study about the noncompliance with prescribing writing requirements and prescribing errors as well as the effect of it. To be fact-based, about 209 out of 260 prescriptions in out-patient department (OPD) pharmacy of Hospital Raja Permaisuri Bainun managed to comply with all legal requirements in terms of law under the Poisons Act 1952. 130 prescriptions were randomly taken from counter six, seven and eight for two month. 24 omission errors and 40 commission errors were detected from 51 prescription that having medication errors. As we know, commission errors is an errors that wrongly written information in prescriptions. This kind of errors can easily be done by the prescribers. Based on the research, the guideline should be provided so that we can decrease these errors. Nevertheless, without careful checking by the pharmacist or dispenser patient possible harm could have resulted from the errors.