Medication Administration Errors and the Pediatric Population: A Systematic Search of the Literature1

There are a variety of factors that make the pediatric population more susceptible to medication errors and potential complications resulting from medication administration including the availability of different dosage forms of the same medication, incorrect dosing, lack of standardized dosing regimen, and organ system maturity. A systematic literature search on medication administration errors in the pediatric population was conducted. Five themes obtained from the systematic literature search include incidence rate of medication administration errors; specific medications involved in medication administration errors and classification of the errors; why medication administration errors occur; medication error reporting; and interventions to reduce medication errors.

Key words: Medication errors, Medication administration errors, Medication safety, Pediatric population