Evaluation of perioperative drug administration errors and side effects

Objective: Drug administration errors stand out as the most frequently reported critical events during anesthesia. The occurrence of side effects due to drug administration and errors in anesthesia management can result in significant morbidity, mortality, and an extended duration of hospitalization. This study aimed to examine the frequency and severity of perioperative drug administration errors and the associated side effects during anesthesia. Material and Methods: This prospective observational study was conducted at the Turkish Health Sciences University xxx Anesthesiologists who were uninformed about the study were observed by a different anesthesiologist in 225 different operations in terms of medical errors. Errors in the preparation, management, monitoring, and documentation stages and drug side effects were recorded. Results: Perioperative medical errors were observed in 68% of the operations, and errors occurred at a rate of 30.2% at the preparation stage, 16.4% at the monitoring stage, and 40.8% at the documentation stage. Drug administration error was found at a rate of 12% at the management stage. Drug side effects were observed in 24% of the patients, and the drug that most often caused side effects was thiopental (8.4%). The number of perioperative errors (2.15 ± 1.27) in patients who underwent general anesthesia was found to be significantly higher than that in patients who underwent neuraxial anesthesia and sedoanalgesia (number of errors = 1.58 ± 0.97 and 1.85 ± 0.55, respectively) (p = 0.025). In addition, the incidence of side effects (29.7%) in patients who underwent general anesthesia was found to be significantly higher than that in patients who underwent neuraxial anesthesia and sedoanalgesia (14.8% and 25.0%, respectively) (p = 0.049). Conclusion: In this study, we observed a higher frequency of perioperative drug administration errors and associated side effects in general anaesthesia patients.