A 10-year study analyzing out-of-hospital medication errors among children less than six years old found a child in the United States suffers a medication error every eight minutes, according to the journal Pediatrics.
The study analyzed data from the National Poison Database System of reported out-of-hospital medication errors from 2002 through 2012. They found an average of 63,358 medication errors per year, which is approximately 26.42 errors per 10,000 children.
The study indicates the number of medication errors decreases as children grow older, with 25.2 percent of episodes occurring in children less than one year old.
The most common type of medication involved in errors were analgesics (25.2 percent), followed by cough and cold preparations (24.6 percent). Additionally, the majority of medication errors (96.2 percent) were the result of improper ingestion, followed by inadvertently administering medication twice (27 percent).
Researchers suggest increased efforts are needed to help prevent medication errors in young children.
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