↓ Skip to main content

Can a novel constructivist theory-informed feedback intervention reduce prescribing errors ? A pre-post study

Overview of attention for article published in BMC Medical Education, March 2023
Altmetric Badge

About this Attention Score

  • Average Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age

Mentioned by

twitter
2 X users

Citations

dimensions_citation
1 Dimensions

Readers on

mendeley
14 Mendeley
You are seeing a free-to-access but limited selection of the activity Altmetric has collected about this research output. Click here to find out more.
Title
Can a novel constructivist theory-informed feedback intervention reduce prescribing errors ? A pre-post study
Published in
BMC Medical Education, March 2023
DOI 10.1186/s12909-023-04095-6
Pubmed ID
Authors

Ian Coombes, Peter Donovan, Brooke Bullock, Charles Mitchell, Christy Noble

Abstract

Medical interns (interns) find prescribing challenging and many report lacking readiness when commencing work. Errors in prescribing puts patients' safety at risk. Yet error rates remain high, despite education, supervision and pharmacists' contributions. Feedback on prescribing may improve performance. Yet, work-based prescribing feedback practices focus on rectifying errors. We aimed to explore if prescribing can be improved using a theory-informed feedback intervention. In this pre-post study, we designed and implemented a constructivist-theory informed prescribing feedback intervention, informed by Feedback-Mark 2 Theory. Interns commencing internal medicine terms in two Australian teaching hospitals were invited to engage in the feedback intervention. Their prescribing was evaluated by comparing errors per medication order of at least 30 orders per intern. Pre/baseline (weeks 1-3) were compared with post intervention (weeks 8-9). Interns' baseline prescribing audit findings were analysed and discussed at individualised feedback sessions. These sessions were with a clinical pharmacologist (Site 1) and a pharmacist educator (Site 2). Eighty eight intern's prescribing over five 10-week terms was analysed from two hospitals. The frequency of prescribing errors significantly reduced at both sites after the intervention, across all five terms (p < 0.001).There were initially 1598 errors in 2750 orders (median [IQR] 0.48 [0.35-0.67] errors per order) and after the intervention 1113 errors in 2694 orders (median [IQR] 0.30 [0.17-0.50] errors per order). Our findings suggest interns' prescribing practices may improve as a result of constructivist -theory learner centred, informed feedback with an agreed plan. This novel intervention, contributed, to a reduction in interns' prescribing errors. This study suggests new strategies for improving prescribing safety should include the design and implementation of theory-informed feedback interventions.

X Demographics

X Demographics

The data shown below were collected from the profiles of 2 X users who shared this research output. Click here to find out more about how the information was compiled.
Mendeley readers

Mendeley readers

The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 14 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.

Geographical breakdown

Country Count As %
Unknown 14 100%

Demographic breakdown

Readers by professional status Count As %
Student > Doctoral Student 2 14%
Student > Master 1 7%
Other 1 7%
Lecturer > Senior Lecturer 1 7%
Lecturer 1 7%
Other 1 7%
Unknown 7 50%
Readers by discipline Count As %
Medicine and Dentistry 3 21%
Pharmacology, Toxicology and Pharmaceutical Science 2 14%
Psychology 1 7%
Unknown 8 57%
Attention Score in Context

Attention Score in Context

This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 1. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 08 March 2023.
All research outputs
#16,574,271
of 24,384,616 outputs
Outputs from BMC Medical Education
#2,503
of 3,728 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#236,371
of 408,324 outputs
Outputs of similar age from BMC Medical Education
#86
of 149 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 24,384,616 research outputs across all sources so far. This one is in the 21st percentile – i.e., 21% of other outputs scored the same or lower than it.
So far Altmetric has tracked 3,728 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a little more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 6.4. This one is in the 22nd percentile – i.e., 22% of its peers scored the same or lower than it.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 408,324 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one is in the 30th percentile – i.e., 30% of its contemporaries scored the same or lower than it.
We're also able to compare this research output to 149 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one is in the 28th percentile – i.e., 28% of its contemporaries scored the same or lower than it.