Background/Purpose: Medications errors are common and are an important cause of morbidity and mortality. We aimed to evaluate patient accuracy in recalling current medication use, doses and reasons for taking the medications in a general rheumatology outpatient clinic. 

Methods: This is a descriptive study of 100 consecutive patients who attended clinic and voluntarily accepted to fill a single questionnaire. The questionnaire consisted of name (s) of the medication (s) the patient was taking, dose, diagnosis associated with their medications, medical record number, sex and age. Once we had this information, the medical records were reviewed to look for discrepancies. Data collected was entered in Excel Files and was analyzed in STATA version 14. The information was verified and converted to groups of interest. Data whose overall category only had 5 cases were only presented as frequencies describing the patient’s characteristics but were not fit for further analysis and thus they were eliminated from the bivariate and multivariate analysis. Association of variables was determined using a p-value < 0.05. To assess our objectives, frequency distributions were made to describe the characteristics of the patients. Then chi squares analysis were done for categorical variables in order to determine if they were associated to our variables of interest. For continuous variables such as age and number of prescriptions a t-test was performed. At last a logistic regression was done when we found characteristics that were significantly associated with our variable of interest. In the logistic regression we also assessed whether or not interaction among the variables existed in order to find the best explanation to the associations found between variables.

Results: We had 85 females and 15 males. Mean age was 47.13 ± 14 years. The average number of prescriptions per patient was six. Lack of knowledge regarding reason for taking medications was seen in 35 patients; fifty five did not recall the dose of medications prescribed. Discrepancies between the patient’s and the electronic medical record medication list were identified in 71, with an average of two per patient; the majority of them were patient derived. The most common medications involved in errors were antidepressants/anxiolytics (19), vitamins (18), immunosuppressants (13), NSAIDS (12), antihypertensives (12) and anti-acids (9). The most common diagnosis in our clinics were fibromyalgia (33), osteoarthritis (16), RA (17), SLE (13) and others (26). The most common prescribed medications were antihypertensives (41), antidepressants (38), prednisone (25), hydroxychloroquine (25) and immunosuppressants (22). No significant associations were found between variables of interest.

Conclusion: Although most of our patients know the medical condition associated with a medication, the majority of them cannot precisely recall a medications list. This is a very important factor that can lead to medical errors. Patients should be educated regarding the importance of keeping an accurate medication list. 

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ACR Meeting Abstracts - https://acrabstracts.org/abstract/improving-care-and-avoiding-errors-can-our-patients-recall-their-medications-and-create-an-accurate-medication-list/