Abstract
Objective: Determine the type, incidence and causes of medication errors in a sample of at the emergency service of a private hospital in Costa Rica. Methods: Observational retrospective study, the selected patients were those who consulted between October 1st and December 31 and had digitalized prescriptions; the variables were evaluated to assign a category for each medication error detected and each prescribed drug. Results: A total of 435 medication errors were detected, the most common being an incorrect selection and an incomplete prescription; with an average of 1, 44 errors per prescription; mainly in patients between 18 and 40 years old (48, 7%). Of the 300 analyzed cases, 192 did have a prescription error: 6 for a potential error, 183 did not result in patient harm and 3 were a combination of those. Conclusions: There is a high incidence of prescription errors in the emergency service at this hospital; mainly due to a inadequate drug selection and a information omission in the medical prescriptions, nevertheless, in general the medication errors did not cause harm to the patients. There is a need to develop adequate strategies to improve the drugs’ use at this service.