Factors contributing to reported medication administration incidents in patients’ homes – A text mining analysis

AIMS: To describe the characteristics of medication administration (MA) incidents reported to have occurred in patients’ own homes (reporters’ profession, incident types, contributing factors, patient consequence, and most common medications involved) and to identify the connection terms related to the most common contributing factors based on free text descriptions. DESIGN: A retrospective study using descriptive statistical analysis and text mining. METHODS: Medication administration incidents (N = 19,725) reported to have occurred in patients’ homes between 2013–2018 in one district in Finland were analysed, describing the data by the reporters’ occupation, incident type, contributing factors, and patient consequence. SAS® Text Miner was used to analyse free text descriptions of the MA incidents to understand contributing factors, using concept linking. RESULTS: Most MA incidents were reported by practical (lower level) nurses (77.8%, N = 15,349). The most common category of harm was ‘mild harm’ (40.1%, N = 7,915) and the most common error type was omissions of drug doses (47.4%, N = 9,343). The medications most commonly described were Marevan [warfarin] (N = 2,668), insulin (N = 811), Furesis [furosemide] (N = 590), antibiotic (N = 446), and Panadol [paracetamol] (N = 416). The contributing factors most commonly reported were ‘communication and flow of information’ (25.5%, N = 5,038), ‘patient and relatives’ (22.6%, N = 4,451), ‘practices’ (9.9%, N = 1,959), ‘education and training’ (4.8%, N = 949), and ‘work environment and resources’ (3.0%, N = 598). CONCLUSION: There is need for effective communication and clear responsibilities between home care patients and their relatives and health providers, about MA and its challenges in home environments. Knowledge and skills relating to safe MA are also essential. IMPACT: These findings about MA incidents that have occurred in patients’ homes and have been reported by home care professionals demonstrate the need for medication safety improvement in home care.