rss
Qual Saf Health Care 2008;17:109-116 doi:10.1136/qshc.2007.022681
  • Error management

Causes of preventable drug-related hospital admissions: a qualitative study

  1. R Howard1,
  2. A Avery2,
  3. P Bissell3
  1. 1
    School of Pharmacy, University of Reading, Reading, Berkshire, UK
  2. 2
    School of Community Health Sciences, University of Nottingham Medical School, Nottingham, UK
  3. 3
    ScHARR, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK
  1. R Howard, School of Pharmacy, University of Reading, Whiteknights, PO Box 226, Reading, Berkshire RG6 6AP, UK; rachel.howard{at}reading.ac.uk
  • Accepted 12 July 2007

Abstract

Objective: To explore the causes of preventable drug-related admissions (PDRAs) to hospital.

Design: Qualitative case studies using semi-structured interviews and medical record review; data analysed using a framework derived from Reason’s model of organisational accidents and cascade analysis.

Participants: 62 participants, including 18 patients, 8 informal carers, 17 general practitioners, 12 community pharmacists, 3 practice nurses and 4 other members of healthcare staff, involved in events leading up to the patients’ hospital admissions.

Setting: Nottingham, UK.

Results: PDRAs are associated with problems at multiple stages in the medication use process, including prescribing, dispensing, administration, monitoring and help seeking. The main causes of these problems are communication failures (between patients and healthcare professionals and different groups of healthcare professionals) and knowledge gaps (about drugs and patients’ medical and medication histories). The causes of PDRAs are similar irrespective of whether the hospital admission is associated with a prescribing, monitoring or patient adherence problem.

Conclusions: The causes of PDRAs are multifaceted and complex. Technical solutions to PDRAs will need to take account of this complexity and are unlikely to be sufficient on their own. Interventions targeting the human causes of PDRAs are also necessary—for example, improving methods of communication.

Footnotes

  • Funding: Funded by NHS R&D funding, through the Nottingham Primary Care Research Partnership, and £10 000 Galen award from the Pharmacy Practice Research Trust. The sponsors of the study had no role in the study design, data collection, data analysis, data interpretation, or writing of the report. RH had full access to all the data in the study and had final responsibility for the decision to submit for publication.

  • Competing interests: None.

  • Ethics approval: The Nottingham research ethics committee and research governance offices approved the study.

This Article

  1. Abstract
  2. Full text
  3. PDF

Responses

  1. Submit a response
  2. No responses published

Register for free content

The full back archive is now available for all BMJ Journals. Institutional subscribers may access the entire archive as part of their subscription. Personal subscribers will also have access to all content when logged in. Non-subscribers who register have free access to all articles published before 2006 right back to volume 1 issue 1. Register here to access the free archive of all BMJ Journals.

Don't forget to sign up for content alerts so you keep up to date with all the articles as they are published.