의약품 사용오류의 국내 현황: 한국소비자원 자료 분석 결과

Abstract

Objectives: According to the annual reports of Korea Consumer Agency, the consumers’ compensation claims for medical service have increased. Among them, compensation claims related to medication use have accounted for 1 to 3 percent. In this research, we analyzed the consumers’ claim data about medication use to understand the current state of medication error in Korea. Methods: Recent five-year (2010−2014) consumers’ damage cases from Korea Consumer Agency were analyzed by two pharmacists. They independently reviewed each case and classified it into the three groups: 1) the cases related to both medication error and adverse event; 2) the cases related to only adverse event; 3) the cases which belong to neither case 1) nor case 2). After reviewing all cases, they achieved consensus on the disagreements. And some cases which needed clinical advisory opinions were reviewed by clinical specialists (1 clinician, 2 clinical pharmacists). Results: Total number of cases were 119, and 11 cases (9.24%) were related to medication error. There were some cases which could not be assessed because of shortness of information about the situation or difficulties of assessing herbal remedy. Therefore, we presume that actual proportion of medication error will be higher than this result. Conclusion: There should be caution in interpreting the result, because the data from Korea Consumer Agency only include the cases reported by some consumers who wanted compensation for the damage. It cannot cover the overall prevalence of medication error in Korea.