1MSc in Nutrition, Nutrition and Metabolic Disease Research Center
2PhD in Nutrition, Nutrition and Metabolic Disease Research Center
3Anesthesiologist and Fellowship of Critical Care Medicine, Golestan Hospital
4Anesthesiologist and Fellowship of Critical Care Medicine, Emam Hospital, Ahvaz Jundishapur University of Medical Sciences, Ahvaz, Iran
5Assistant Professor in Nutrition Sciences, School of Health, Arak University of Medical Sciences, Arak, Iran
Online published on 30 August, 2018.
Parenteral nutrition (PN) is a high-alert medication, and errors associated with the use of this therapy may lead to harm to patients. The aim of this study was to determine if involvement by dietitians in PN ordering resulted in a reduction in total prescriptions errors.
A prospective audit of PN prescriptions was undertaken at ICUs of three referral hospitals over 54 weeks. Prescriptions for PN that had dietitian involvement (dietitian group) were compared with prescriptions in which dietitians were not directly involved (nondietitian group). The number of total prescriptions, the number of prescriptions with errors, and the types of errors from both groups were recorded.
The total number of PN prescriptions was 462 (from 55 patients) and 536 (from 65 patients) for the dietitian and nondietitian groups, respectively. There was a lower rate of prescriptions with errors in the dietitian group (13.4%, 152 of 462) versus the nondietitian group (18.3%, 190 of 536; P =.007).
Errors in PN are common in the ICU wards. Dietitians input into prescription of PN orders can decrease the number of associated errors in prescriptions.
Parenteral Nutrition, medical errors, prescriptions, nutritional support
