Summary Background: Communication in health care is an important aspect to maintain a patient-safe care. In intensive care, critical situations can arise, a critical situation can mean that a patient becomes acutely impaired, which means that the intensive care nurse must handle the care accordingly. In these situations, several doctors and nurses gather at the patient's premises and the environment can be perceived as stressful. It is in such situations that communication can be lacking in connection with verbal prescriptions and that several people communicate at the same time.Aim: The aim of this study is to investigate intensive care nurses' experiences of communication in critical situations. Method: A descriptive design with a qualitative approach was used. Nine semi-structured interviews were conducted that were analyzed with a qualitative content analysis. Results: In the present study about intensive care nurses' experiences of communication in critical situations, four categories emerged; Communication inand outside of the team, The importance of professional experience can give safety, The importance of oral prescriptions in critical situations and Intensive care nurses' perceived feelings in critical situations. The intensive care nurses who participated in the study considered that there were great risks with lack of communication and mainly the verbal prescriptions that occur in critical situations. More experienced nurses felt that they could question the prescriptions more than those who were less experienced. Conclusion: The conclusion is that the experience of intensive care nurses gives a self-confidence. There are shortcomings regarding communication within the intensive care team in critical situations, which can be a risk to patient safety. Experience was perceived to be important in critical situations. Practice and clear routines should be able to reduce the risks in these situations.  Keywords: Intensive care nurse, Communication, Medical errors, Oral prescriptions, Patient safety

<p>En ofullständig eller inaktuell dokumentation av läkemedel i Receptregistret och läkemedelslistorna kan leda till en sämre vetskap om vilka läkemedel som är aktuella att administrera samt till felmedicinering.</p><p>Syftet med denna studie är att hos patienter med diagnosen artros undersöka förekomsten av avvikelser mellan recept i Receptregistret på apotek, vårdcentralens läkemedelslista från ordinationsjournalen samt patienternas egen uppfattning om aktuell läkemedelsbehandling.</p><p>Studien genomfördes dels som registerstudie genom avstämning av journaldata på aktuella läkemedelsordinationer från Stensö Hälsocentral mot sparade recept i Receptregistret och dels som telefonintervju med patienterna om vilka recept som utgör hans/hennes aktuella ordinationer.</p><p>Av artrospatienternas recept i Receptregistret var 89 % aktuella och av artrospatiernas ordinationer i läkemedelslistorna på hälsocentralen var 69 % aktuella. Av alla artrospatienters ordinationer var det 52 % som var aktuella och som förekom i både Receptregistret och läkemedelslistorna.</p><p>Trots att studien är begränsad i storlek och att patienterna bara rekryterades från en vårdcentral indikerar resultaten att det finns betydande skillnader mellan artrospatienternas aktuella medicinering, deras läkemedelslistor på vårdcentral samt Receptregister från apotek. Genom att förbättra och göra regelbundna läkemedelsavstämningar efter ändringar i patientens läkemedelsbehandling, såväl på apotek som inom sjukvården, kan antalet avvikelser reduceras, följsamheten hos patienterna kan ökas genom att det blir lättare för dem att veta vilka läkemedel som är aktuella att administrera och medicineringsfel kan reduceras.</p> / <p>Misuse of drugs is a growing problem and a major cause of both morbidity and mortality in today's society. This may be a result of an incomplete or outdated medication history of patients and it is therefore important that all medical records are updated with the current drugs for the patient to use to prevent medication errors.</p><p>The ultimate effect of any drug therapy depends on the patient's decision to take their medicines as the doctor has prescribed, to have so-called adherence to their prescription medicines, which in turn depends in particular on the patient's knowledge of the drugs at issue. To assist the patient there are two kinds of printing, a list with the doctor’s prescriptions from the electronic patient record (EMR) and also a list from the national prescription repository (NPR) of all the saved prescriptions at pharmacies by the patient. Discrepancies may exist between what is documented in the patient's EMR and that in the pharmacy record, which both also may differ from the drugs that the patient actually is using. These discrepancies between the documents, which can both include valid and outdated prescriptions so as prescription duplicates, can cause a worsening of compliance and medication errors especially in patients with multiple drugs that may have difficult to keep track of their current drug treatment.</p><p>The aim of the study was compare the national prescription repository (NPR), the electronic medical records (EMR) and patient’s knowledge of the prescribed treatment for people with a diagnosis of osteoarthritis.</p><p>The study was conducted both as registry study by reconciliation of journal data on current drug prescriptions from a health centre (HCC) with saved recipes in the Swedish national prescription repository (NPR) and partly by telephone interview with patients about the prescriptions that represent his / her current prescriptions. The participation rate was 58 %. Twenty-nine patients with osteoarthritis were included in the study.</p><p>Of the osteoarthritis patients 89 % the recipes in the NPR were found to be valid and 11 % were outdated. Duplicates of recipes were estimated to 5 %, and double-medication occurred in 1 % of the recipes.</p><p>Of the patients' prescriptions in the medical records at the health centre 69 % were found to be valid. The outdated prescriptions were estimated to 31 % while 4 % was duplicates.</p><p>For all of the osteoarthritis patients' 247 drugs, only 52 % was valid and occurred both in the NPR and in the EMR.</p><p>There were major discrepancies between the prescriptions in the EMR, the NPR and what the patients with osteoarthritis are seeing as their current prescriptions. Through regular medical reconciliations after changes in the patients' treatment, in both health care and pharmacies, the discrepancies can be reduced, the patient can be surer of what to administrate and therefore medication errors can be reduced.</p>

Sammanfattning Syftet med föreliggande arbete var att studera förekomsten av felaktiga läkemedelsordinationer på en pediatrisk avdelning. Metoden bestod i journalgranskning av läkemedelsordinationer av inskrivna patienter (n = 94) under två månader, 2012. Journalgranskningen utfördes i journaldatabasen Cosmic och omfattade 543 läkemedelsordinationer vilka granskades utifrån flertalet variabler. Resultatet visade att 174 av 543 (32 %) ordinationslistor var felaktiga. Läkemedelsnamn samt hänvisning till speciallista var angivet i samtliga ordinationer. Läkemedelsform var angivet i majoriteten av läkemedelsordinationerna. Styrka var ej angivet i 1 %, dos var ej angivet i 2 %, administrationssätt var felaktigt angivet i 6 % och var ej angivet i 9 %, administrationstidpunkt var ej angivet i 2 %. Maxdos för vid behovsläkemedel var ej angivet i 35 % och spädningsschema eller hänvisning till spädningsschema var ej angivet i 10 % av läkemedelsordinationerna. Slutsatsen visar att de vanligaste felaktigheterna bestod i administrationssätt, maxdos för vid behovsläkemedel samt spädningsschema eller hänvisning till spädningsschema. Alla felaktigheter i läkemedelsordinationen har påverkan på arbetssituationen för sjuksköterskan i såväl handhavandet av läkemedel, tidsåtgång samt resurser inom vården, vilket äventyrar patientsäkerheten. / Abstract The aim of the study was to investigate the incidence of drug prescription errors at a pediatric ward facility. The method used consisted of medical record review of drug prescription errors of enrolled patients (n = 94) for two months during 2012. Medical record review was performed and included 543 drug prescriptions, which were evaluated. The results showed that 174 of 543 (32 %) of prescription lists were incorrect, based on information given with the medication. The study found that drug name and reference to the specialist were always provided. However, errors included: dosage form not specified in 0.4%, strength was not specified in 1.1%, dose was not specified in 1.6%, route of administration was incorrectly stated in 5.9% and was not specified in 8.8%, administration time was not specified in 1.7%. Maximum dose for range order was not specified in 34.9% and dilution scheme or reference to dilution scheme was not specified in 9.6%. The conclusion of the study was that the most common prescription errors consisted of route of administration, the maximum dose if necessary drugs and dilution scheme or reference to dilution scheme. Prescription errors have effects in the workplace for nurses in the administration of drugs, which threatens patient safety.

En ofullständig eller inaktuell dokumentation av läkemedel i Receptregistret och läkemedelslistorna kan leda till en sämre vetskap om vilka läkemedel som är aktuella att administrera samt till felmedicinering. Syftet med denna studie är att hos patienter med diagnosen artros undersöka förekomsten av avvikelser mellan recept i Receptregistret på apotek, vårdcentralens läkemedelslista från ordinationsjournalen samt patienternas egen uppfattning om aktuell läkemedelsbehandling. Studien genomfördes dels som registerstudie genom avstämning av journaldata på aktuella läkemedelsordinationer från Stensö Hälsocentral mot sparade recept i Receptregistret och dels som telefonintervju med patienterna om vilka recept som utgör hans/hennes aktuella ordinationer. Av artrospatienternas recept i Receptregistret var 89 % aktuella och av artrospatiernas ordinationer i läkemedelslistorna på hälsocentralen var 69 % aktuella. Av alla artrospatienters ordinationer var det 52 % som var aktuella och som förekom i både Receptregistret och läkemedelslistorna. Trots att studien är begränsad i storlek och att patienterna bara rekryterades från en vårdcentral indikerar resultaten att det finns betydande skillnader mellan artrospatienternas aktuella medicinering, deras läkemedelslistor på vårdcentral samt Receptregister från apotek. Genom att förbättra och göra regelbundna läkemedelsavstämningar efter ändringar i patientens läkemedelsbehandling, såväl på apotek som inom sjukvården, kan antalet avvikelser reduceras, följsamheten hos patienterna kan ökas genom att det blir lättare för dem att veta vilka läkemedel som är aktuella att administrera och medicineringsfel kan reduceras. / Misuse of drugs is a growing problem and a major cause of both morbidity and mortality in today's society. This may be a result of an incomplete or outdated medication history of patients and it is therefore important that all medical records are updated with the current drugs for the patient to use to prevent medication errors. The ultimate effect of any drug therapy depends on the patient's decision to take their medicines as the doctor has prescribed, to have so-called adherence to their prescription medicines, which in turn depends in particular on the patient's knowledge of the drugs at issue. To assist the patient there are two kinds of printing, a list with the doctor’s prescriptions from the electronic patient record (EMR) and also a list from the national prescription repository (NPR) of all the saved prescriptions at pharmacies by the patient. Discrepancies may exist between what is documented in the patient's EMR and that in the pharmacy record, which both also may differ from the drugs that the patient actually is using. These discrepancies between the documents, which can both include valid and outdated prescriptions so as prescription duplicates, can cause a worsening of compliance and medication errors especially in patients with multiple drugs that may have difficult to keep track of their current drug treatment. The aim of the study was compare the national prescription repository (NPR), the electronic medical records (EMR) and patient’s knowledge of the prescribed treatment for people with a diagnosis of osteoarthritis. The study was conducted both as registry study by reconciliation of journal data on current drug prescriptions from a health centre (HCC) with saved recipes in the Swedish national prescription repository (NPR) and partly by telephone interview with patients about the prescriptions that represent his / her current prescriptions. The participation rate was 58 %. Twenty-nine patients with osteoarthritis were included in the study. Of the osteoarthritis patients 89 % the recipes in the NPR were found to be valid and 11 % were outdated. Duplicates of recipes were estimated to 5 %, and double-medication occurred in 1 % of the recipes. Of the patients' prescriptions in the medical records at the health centre 69 % were found to be valid. The outdated prescriptions were estimated to 31 % while 4 % was duplicates. For all of the osteoarthritis patients' 247 drugs, only 52 % was valid and occurred both in the NPR and in the EMR. There were major discrepancies between the prescriptions in the EMR, the NPR and what the patients with osteoarthritis are seeing as their current prescriptions. Through regular medical reconciliations after changes in the patients' treatment, in both health care and pharmacies, the discrepancies can be reduced, the patient can be surer of what to administrate and therefore medication errors can be reduced.

Syftet med detta projekt var att identifiera om en implementering av en standardisering för receptbelagda läkemedelsförpackningar, skulle kunna bidra till en minskad risk gällande feldosering eller felmedicinering av patient. Resultatet av studien konstaterar att en standardisering för ordinationer har större effekt. / The purpose of this project was to identify if an implementation of a standardization for prescription drugs packaging, could contribute to a reduced risk of error when medicating a patient with prescription drugs and dosage. The outcome of the study states that a standardization for prescriptions has a bigger impact.