Medicine Errors at Home: All Too Common

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Medicines are a part of modern life. A family member may have an injury and need to take analgesics (pain relievers). In another family, someone may have a chronic illness that requires regular prescription drugs. A third scenario could be that a child has an ear infection and has to take antibiotics. Medicines keep us alive and they make life more livable for millions of people. Yet medication errors are all too common.

According to an article in Family Practice Management, in any given week, four out of five Americans take either a prescription drug, an over-the-counter (OTC) medicine, or a dietary or herbal supplement. That's a lot of people. The article goes on to say that nearly 1/3 of American adults take five or more drugs. But if you think about it, that's not too surprising. Let's say our friend Mr. Johnson has type 2 diabetes, arthritis, and hypertension. He may take one or two prescription meds for each condition – and then on top of that, he may have other medicines to take occasionally if he has an infection or some other short-term health problem. That's easily five or more medicines at one time.

Whenever you take a prescription drug, there's room for error. If you take more than one, the chances of making mistakes multiply.

If you're a parent or grandparent, giving medicine to a child, you know how easy it is to make a mistake. The journal Pediatrics published a study in 2014 that found that outside of the hospital environment, every eight minutes in the U.S. a child under the age of six years old is subjected to a drug error. One every eight minutes. The study looked at a period of 10 years. Almost 700,000 children had medication errors and 25 of the children died. Almost 2,000 were admitted to critical care units.

The most common drug error at home is dosage — the amount of the drug given or taken — according to that last study. Dosing mistakes include giving too much of a medicine or not enough. If you're giving or taking a liquid medicine, dosing errors usually come from incorrect measuring. Someone may use a tablespoon instead of a teaspoon or the other way around. Kitchen spoons aren't specific enough for medicines either, so the dose isn't precise. If parents, grandparents, or other caregivers are all giving medicines to the same child, one caregiver may give a dose withoutt realizing another already gave it.

Other common errors involve:

• Chewing or breaking a pill or capsule that shouldn't be chewed or broken. This is a common mistake. Many pills shouldn't be broken because they have a special coating on them to prevent the medicine from being absorbed in the body too early in the digestive process.
• Taking at the wrong time. Some pills must be taken with food, others on an empty stomach. Taking them incorrectly will affect how they are absorbed and how effective they are. And taking some pills on an empty stomach can cause serious irritation, leading to other problems.
• Missing doses. Forgetting to take medicine is a common problem and just about everyone who has ever taken a prescription drug has forgotten a dose from time to time. 
• Misunderstanding directions. Taking medicines can be stressful. You're not feeling well when you've gone to the doctor or nurse practitioner. You may feel rushed or you may not think to review the prescription. This can lead to misunderstanding the instructions. Unfortunately, this is more common than people realize.

Prescription and over-the-counter drugs are serious products and while we may take them every day, it's really important not to ever take them for granted. Mistakes happen and they happen every day. So know your prescription and how it should be taken. If you have any questions about any drugs you take, ask your pharmacist. Your pharmacist is your best resource when it comes to medications. That is his or her specialty.

Marijke Vroomen Durning RN has written articles, promotional material, and continuing medical education (CME) for health care professionals, as well as patient information sheets and articles for the general public. She has also co-authored several books. Her blog was chosen as one of the Top 10 Canadian Health and Fitness Blogs by SheKnows Canada.She is the author of Just the Right Dose: Your Smart Guide to Prescription Drugs & How to Take Them Safely. To learn more about the book, please visit JustTheRightDose.com. You can also go directly to Amazon or Kobo to purchase it.Please also visit http://medhealthwriter.blogspot.ca/and http://medhealthwriter.com/.