Short Communication: Prescription Intervention Activities by Pharmacists in a Tertiary Care Hospital in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania

Abstract

Prescription screening and pharmacist intervention activities to assess the safety and appropriateness of prescribed medicines remain an important role of pharmacists. Pharmacists in Tanzania are involved in prescription screening and intervention to varying degrees but documentation of such activities is scarce in the literature. The objective of this pilot study was, therefore, to identify prescribing errors and document the types of pharmacist's intervention. The study was carried out at one outpatient pharmacy of a tertiarycare hospital comprising ten clinical departments. Pharmacy technicians prospectively screened all prescriptions received for possible occurrence of prescribing errors and referred all prescriptions with errors to the pharmacist. Data collector recorded the type of the intervention made by the pharmacist and its outcome prospectively for each error. The pharmacist carried out a total of 219 different types of interventions. These interventions included contacting the prescribers concerned by telephone (20%), clarifying with the patient or his/her caretaker (76.7%), and sending back the patient to the prescribers (2.7%). On one occasion (0.5%), the pharmacist went to discuss with the prescriber face-to- face. Of all prescriptions with errors, 77.6% were rectified by the pharmacist, 2.3% clarified by the prescribers and all were dispensed without changing them while 14.2% were changed and dispensed. Twelve prescriptions (6.1%) were not dispensed at all. The study reinforces the importance of prescription screening and interventions by pharmacists to minimize preventable adverse events attributed to prescribing errors.

Keywords: prescription, pharmacist, prescribing errors, intervention, Tanzania

Ethiopian Pharmaceutical Journal Vol. 26 (1) 2008: pp. 69-74