Spontaneous reporting of medication errors in pediatric university hospital

Objective: To analyze medication errors notified at a pediatric teaching hospital in Sao Paulo city. Methods: Retrospective and descriptive study in which 120 error events and 115 spontaneous notifications were analyzed, between January 2007 and December 2008. Results: The error rate was 1.15 per 1000 patients-clay; 27.5% of notifications referred to the school age range and the Pediatric ICU was the sector with most notifications. The error type related to wrong infusion speed predominated (25%). The human factor dimension in the performance deficit category (54%) was the most frequent cause of error events. Conclusion: The safety culture is a continuous process in institutions and the notification of adverse events is part of the strategics. Improvement measures should be incorporated based on their analysis, whether related to the review of the work process or to team training