View article

Medication safety practices and methods for reporting errors in community pharmacies are relatively unknown.

(s): The primary objective of this study was to describe student-reported data on medication safety and error reporting practices in community pharmacies, and secondarily describe student learning from this assignment.

Second professional year pharmacy students enrolled at Purdue University College of Pharmacy in the United States observed and recorded medication safety and error reporting practices as part of an experiential assignment. Data were collected from 170 unique pharmacy settings between the years 2016–2018 and analyzed using descriptive statistics and a paired t-test to assess student learning.

51% of students reported documentation of 1–10 errors or near misses annually, with an additional 30% reporting 11–30. Near misses were only reported …