[Prevention of medication errors during intravenous drug administration in intensive care units: a literature review.]

Medication errors during drug administration represent a current issue in intensive care units due to the complexity of patients, the large quantity of drugs administered intravenously, the frequent prescription changes and frenetic activities in an emergency setting. The aim of this review is to increase knowledge about prevention and types of medication errors in intensive care units. The review was conducted using the following biomedical databases: PubMed, Cinahl, and Google Scholar. A total of 40 studies were considered useful for research purposes. Most studies showed a higher prevalence of medication errors in complex and intensive care settings. Although there are several different strategies aimed at preventing and reducing errors, available literature data show that a multimodal and multidimensional approach is required to make their use effective.