Ahmad Z. Al Meslamani , Derar H. Abdel-Qader , Abdullah Albassam , Najlaa Saadi Ismael , Asma' A. El-Shara' , Penny Lewis , Salim Hamadi , Esraa Al Jomaa , Nadia Al Mazrouei

Abstract

Medication errors, particularly prescribing errors (PEs), are a major concern in the healthcare field. The growing incidence of PEs poses a risk to patients and a challenge for healthcare management. Pharmacists can play a major role in observing, intervening, and correcting PEs. The study was conducted to measure pharmacy students' knowledge of and attitude towards PEs. The study was a cross-sectional survey based on the Likert scale to assess pharmacy students' attitudes towards PEs. Due to the accessibility of the sample, purposive sampling was used as the sampling method, and a structured questionnaire as the data collection method. The study targeted all students enrolled in the fifth year Bachelor of Pharmacy programme at the University of Petra in Jordan. The number of students who completed the questionnaire was 125. Most of the participants (81, 64.8%) thought PEs are not common in Jordan. The majority of students (122/125, 97.6 %) believed that PEs could lead to death. Around a quarter of students, 26.4% (33/125) believed that PEs were secondary to other medical issues such as hospital infections. Most students (120/125, 96.0 %) believed that only the person who committed PEs was responsible. The majority of respondents (90/125, 72.0 %) do not believe that intervening on and correcting PEs was a major responsibility of pharmacists only. Students had good knowledge about general terms and features of medication errors, particularly PEs. However, students had many misconceptions about detecting specific scenarios of PE events. In addition, students had a lack of knowledge about PEs incidence in Jordan as most of them thought PEs are not common in Jordan. The odds of students’ agreement about the extent of PEs in Jordan were 3.56 times more likely in students who experienced a PE in their life than students who did not (OR 3.56; 95%CI 1.09%-11.62%; p=0.036). Senior pharmacy students at the University of Petra had an overall positive attitude toward statements related to the importance of PEs and the role of pharmacists in the intervention on and correction of PEs.The undergraduate curriculum should contain modules about patient safety and medication errors. Teaching students appropriate skills to detect and intervene.

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