[Adaptation and validation of checklists to detect medication prescription and dispensing errors]. / Adaptación y validación de instrumentos para medir errores en las recetas médicas y en el proceso de preparación de medicamentos en farmacia de pacientes ambulatorios.

BACKGROUND: Adverse effects of medications are an important source of morbidity. Prescription and dispensing errors are an important cause of these adverse effects. AIM: To adapt and validate two checklists, one to measure errors in handwritten prescriptions and other to detected errors in the medication dispensing process of hospital pharmacies for outpatient care. MATERIAL AND METHODS: The study was conducted in three stages. First, checklists for medication errors developed elsewhere were adapted. Afterwards, the checklists were reviewed by experts. Finally, the inter and intra-observer reliability of each checklist was assessed, testing them in 32 occasions by two independent observers. RESULTS: The checklists for medication prescription and dispensing were composed by 12 and seven items, respectively. They were corrected according to experts' opinions. The intraclass correlations of the results of each tester were 0.68 and 0.82 for the prescription and dispensing error checklists, respectively. CONCLUSIONS: The developed checklists for the detection of errors in prescription and dispensing of medications are reliable en can be applied in future studies.

[Validation of quality of life questionnaire ConQol for Chilean children with congenital heart diseases]. / Validación del cuestionario de calidad de vida ConQol, en niños chilenos portadores de cardiopatías congénitas.

BACKGROUND: ConQoL questionnaire assesses health related quality of life among children with congenital heart diseases. It has a version for children aged 8 to 11 years and another for children aged 12 to 16 years. AIM: To validate ConQol questionnaire for Chilean children with a congenital heart disease. MATERIAL AND METHODS: Using a multicentric cross sectional design, 334 children from four hospitals (54% males), were surveyed. Among them 45% were aged 8 to 11 years and 55%, 12 to 16 years. The study involved three stages: cross cultural adjustment of the original questionnaire, pre-test study, and estimation of its psychometric properties. Content, construct and criterion validity and internal consistency with Cronbach's alpha, were assessed. RESULTS: The version for children aged 8 to 11 years and comprised by three domains (symptoms, activity and relationships), obtained and α ≥ 0.60. In the questionnaire for children aged 12 to 16 years, there is one more domain called coping, which obtained an α of 0.53, that was different to the other three domains that obtained an α > 0.70. The correlation between Health Quality of Life and Perception of Health Quality of Life was statistically significant for both groups. The association between Health Quality of Life and health capability was only significant among children aged 12 to 16 years (p < 0.01). CONCLUSIONS: The adapted ConQol questionnaire matched properly with the original one. The adapted questionnaire is valid and reliable to assess Health Quality of Life among Chilean children with congenital heart diseases.