Pharmacist interventions in high-risk obstetric inpatient unit: a medication safety issue

Objectives: The aim of this study was to report number, type and severity of prescribing errors and pharmacist interventions in high-risk pregnant and postpartum women. Design: A prospective cross-sectional, observational study. Setting: A high-risk obstetric inpatient unit of a Women's Hospital in Brazil. Participants: About 1826 electronic prescriptions for 549 women in the high-risk obstetrics inpatient unit were included. Interventions: When the pharmacist detected potential prescribing errors, interventions were suggested. Main Outcome Measures: Prescriptions were evaluated by clinical pharmacist to identify the type, frequency and severity of prescribing errors and rate of clinical pharmacist intervention acceptance in a high-risk obstetric inpatient. Results: A total of 1826 prescriptions were reviewed with 128 errors (7.0%). The most frequent errors were drug interaction (43.8%), incorrect frequency (21.5%) and improper dose (13.1%). One-hundred and sixty-eight interventions were made by pharmacists, 98.8% of which were accepted by prescribers. Higher maternal age (OR 1.0 (95% CI 1.0-1.1)), higher number of prescribed medications (OR 1.2 (95% CI 1.1-1.3)), obstetric conditions (OR 2.2 (95% CI 1.4-3.3)) and non-breastfeeding postpartum women (OR 3.9 (95% CI 2.5-6.1)) were the independent factors associated with prescribing errors identified through multivariate analysis. Conclusions: The most common prescription errors related to drug interactions, incorrect frequency and higher number of prescribed medications. The rate of pharmacist acceptance intervention was high.