Medication Safety and Interventions to Reduce Patient Harm in Low- and Middle-Income Countries

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Background

An adverse drug event (ADE) is defined as an injury resulting from medical intervention(s) related to a drug. Potential ADEs, also known as ‘near misses’, are incidents that did not cause harm but had the potential to do so. On the other hand, actual ADEs involve harm caused by medication and include both adverse drug reactions (ADRs) and medication errors. Medication errors and ADEs due to medication errors are highly prevalent in varying healthcare settings. It has been reported that 5%-6% of all hospitalizations are drugs-related. ADEs represent a significant cause of injury in the inpatient and ambulatory settings, whereas the majority of ADEs are preventable. Furthermore, medication errors and ADEs have significant economic impact on patients and healthcare system. However, the economic burden is unique in LMIC in that the average health expenditure per person is significantly lower than those of Australia, UK and USA.

Studies focusing on medication safety in LMIC are scarce and warrant further investigation to enrich the literature and reflect the real-world situation and suggest further actions to improve patient safety. Traditional and alternative medicine use, wide use of vaccinations to combat pandemics, limited access to medicine, poor healthcare systems, lack of monitoring and assessment of drug safety, and a lack of ADR reporting are examples of potential risks that increase the burden on patients and the healthcare system. In addition, medication errors in the different steps of the medication use process (prescribing, dispensing, monitoring and administering) and the associated ADEs in the inpatient and outpatient settings could have a negative impact on patient outcomes. Some of these ADEs could be the cause of hospital admission.


This collection of research topics would focus on issues related to medication safety in LMIC in the inpatient, outpatient and community settings. In particular, the series will expect submissions of manuscripts related to prevalence and incidence of medication errors, ADRs, and ADEs. In addition, studies involving interventions aimed to reduce patient harm from medications such as medication reconciliation, ADRs reporting, use of technology to reduce patient harm, medical record review by clinical pharmacists, healthcare education to improve identification of potential ADEs and others related interventions will be welcome. The outcomes of such interventions could be reduction in hospitalizations, reduction in emergency department visits, minimization of healthcare cost, decrease in morbidity and mortality, and improvement in quality of life. The collection would also shed light on pharmacovigilance, particularly ADRs reporting and interventions to improve reporting of ADRs. Both original research investigations and robust review articles are welcome to be submitted to this special collection.

Keywords: Medication Safety, Patient harm, Adverse Drug Events, Medication Errors, Adverse Drug Reactions, Interventions

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.

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