Adverse Drug Events and Contributing Factors Among Hospitalized Adult Patients at Jimma Medical Center, Southwest Ethiopia: A Prospective Observational Study

BACKGROUND: Adverse drug events (ADEs) are common complications of clinical care resulting in significant morbidity, mortality, and high clinical expenditure. Population-level estimates of inpatient ADEs are limited in Ethiopia. OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to assess the incidence, contributing factors, severity, and preventability of ADEs among hospitalized adult patients at Jimma Medical Center, Ethiopia. METHODS: A prospective observational study design was conducted among hospitalized adult patients at tertiary hospital in Ethiopia. A structured data collection tool was prepared from relevant literatures for data collection. Data were analyzed using statistical software. Logistic regression was performed to identify factors contributing to ADE occurrence. P values < 0.05 were considered statistically significant. RESULTS: A total of 319 patients were included with follow-up period of 5667 person-days. About 50.5% were women. The mean (SD) age of patients was 43 (17.6) years. One hundred sixteen ADEs were identified with the incidence of 36.4 (95% CI, 30.1–43.6) per 100 admissions and 20.5 (95% CI, 16.9–24.6) per 1000 person-days. Antituberculosis agents (adjusted odds ratio [aOR] = 2.52; 95% CI, 1.06–5.98; P = 0.036), disease of the circulatory system (aOR = 2.67; 95% CI, 1.46–4.89; P = 0.001), disease of the digestive system (aOR = 2.84; 95% CI, 1.45–5.57; P = 0.002), being on medication during admission (aOR = 3.09; 95% CI, 1.77–5.41; P < 0.001), and hospital stay more than 2 weeks (aOR = 3.93; 95% CI, 1.39–11.12; P = 0.010) were independent predictors of ADE occurrence. CONCLUSIONS: One in every 4 patients admitted to the hospital experienced ADEs during their hospital stay. Most ADEs were moderate in severity. About two-thirds of the ADEs identified were deemed probably or definitely preventable. Therefore, it is high time to reinforce large-scale efforts to redesign safer, higher quality health care systems to adequately tackle the problem.