Medication discrepancies
In summary, 511 cases of medication discrepancies were identified, 314 (61.4%) of which were intentional, 98 (19.2%) unintentional and 99 (19.4%) undocumented intentional. The rate of UMDs for all study patients was 0.30±0.63 per patient. 74 (22.4%) patients had at least one UMDs with an average of 1.32±0.62 UMDs per patient; 74.3% of them had one, 20.3% had two, and 5.4% had three or more UMDs. About 82.7% (81/98) of the UMDs were adopted and corrected by the physicians. The most frequent type of the UMDs was omission of home medication, followed by incorrect dose and incorrect drug (Table 2). 26 (26.5%) were unlikely to cause negative clinical impact on the patients (class 1), 64 (65.3%) had the potential to cause moderate discomfort or clinical deterioration (class 2) and 8 (8.2%) had the potential to result in severe discomfort or clinical deterioration.
As regards ATC of medications involved in UMDs, the two most frequent classes involved were cardiovascular system [C] (n=52; 53.0%) and alimentary tract and metabolism system [A] (n=18; 18.4%) (Table 3). Majority (79.2%) of the UMDs that fits ATC class C were prone to be clinical harmful. More than two thirds of UMDs that were likely to cause moderate discomfort or clinical deterioration were from ATC class A drugs.