Predictors of quality of medication prescribing in primary care in Riyadh city, Saudi Arabia

Identifying the indicators of good quality medication prescribing assists physicians in preventing medication errors. This study in Riyadh city aimed to examine the relationship between physicians' self-reported influences on prescribing and the quality of their prescribing, defined as the completeness and accuracy of their prescription documentation. A sample of 600 randomly selected prescriptions written by 87 physicians were rated as high or low quality. The same physicians completed a questionnaire to determine the indicators of quality prescribing. The 7 components identified with factor loadings +0.5 or -0.5 were subjected to binary logistic regression modelling. While a range of potential quality indicators of drug prescribing were identified, none of the variables underpinning the 7 components/factors survived the binary logistic regression mode. More studies are needed that take into account other quality indicators of medication prescribing in Saudi Arabia

Medication errors in primary care in Riyadh city, Saudi Arabia

Medication errors can cause a variety of adverse drug events but are potentially preventable. This cross-sectional study analysed all medication public and 5 private primary health care clinics in Riyadh city, collected by simple day. Prescriptions for 2463 and 2836 drugs from public and private clinics which were analysed using Neville et al.'s classification of prescription errors. Prescribing errors were found on 990/5299 [18.7%] prescriptions. Both type B and type C errors [major and minor nuisance] were more often associated with prescriptions from public than private clinics. Type D errors [trivial] were significantly more likely to occur with private health sector prescriptions. Type A errors [potentially serious] were rare [8/5299 drugs, 0.15%] and the rate did not differ significantly between the 2 health sectors. The development of preventive strategies for avoiding prescription errors is crucial