Medical Dosing Errors and the Effects on Children

Running head:  DOSING ERRORS                                                                                                1

Medical Dosing Errors and the Effects on Children

Dawn M. Clements

Milwaukee Area Technical College

DOSING ERRORS                                                                                                                          2

Medical Dosing Errors and the Effects on Children

        Therapeutic dosage errors, whether in residential or health care settings, are reported to the United States poison control center.  The objective of the article is to characterize the therapeutic dosing errors in children under the age of six and determine the most common substances of the errors.

        The study gathered the information available through the United States poison control centers which included standardized data collected for each report.  The poison centers not only collect the initial data about the exposure but also the circumstances of the exposure and the reasons, including therapeutic errors, and the medical outcomes.  The study narrowed down the  cases to include only selected cases where the medical outcome was known, only one substance was used, the product was a pharmaceutical product and the age was under six years.  

        The results indicated that the number of exposures per year remained constant and that the common site was in the home.  The most common dosing error which took place in the health care setting evolved antibiotics with the error occurring due to confusion with units of measure.  “Common causes of 10-fold dosing errors include failure to place a leading zero before a decimal point (e.g., .3mL), including a zero after a decimal point (e.g., 3.0 mL), and use of trailing zeros (e.g., 0.250 mg)” (Crouch, Caravati & Moltz, 2009).    The study could not identify if the errors occurred during prescribing, dispensing or administrating the drug.   The report did conclude that diligence should be used when prescribing, dispensing and administrating medications.  “Pediatric patients are likely to have an increased risk of experiencing adverse medication-related events” (Crouch, et al., 2009).

DOSING ERRORS                                                                                                                          3

        This article definitely highlights the importance of the five rights and the three checks that need to be performed prior to administering all medications.  As a nursing student and a Registered Nurse, my performance will be impacted by the importance of performing the five rights and three checks.   Not only will I be legally responsible for what I administer, I am ethically and morally responsible to take my time to correctly calculate the dosage, identify the patient, the drug, the route, the time and the frequency.