Medication Errors in the Arab World

Abstract

Medication errors are a major patient safety concern globally. It is important for healthcare organizations to address their prevalence and to understand their causes and contributory factors. This chapter provides an estimate of the numbers of medication errors that occur during patient management in the Arab region, and identifies some factors that could help to alleviate the problem and prevent their reoccurrence. A search of the PubMed database and other online resources was used to identify reports on medication safety in the Arab world from 2010 to 2020. Data on the rates of medication errors in hospitals and primary care facilities were obtained from articles published in English. A total of 338 articles were initially screened; of these, 135 articles met the inclusion criteria for the analysis and were read in full, while another 96 reports were obtained by manual searching. Despite the heterogeneity in the data among Arab countries, the prevalence of medication errors in the region is unusually high. The quality of studies varies among the Arab countries, indicating a wide gap in the quality of health care provided. A lack of knowledge, high workloads, communication failures, medication discrepancies, and a lack of medication safety programs are common factors contributing to medication errors in the Arab world.