Resumo

ARBESU MICHELENA, María Antonieta. Medications errors as a health problem . Rev Cubana Farm [online]. 2008, vol.42, n.2, pp. 0-0. ISSN 1561-2988.

Errors are inherent to human behavior and they result from the concatenation of multiple factors or failures linked with the latent processes and deficiencies related to working procedures, technological means, labor conditions, etc. As the medication errors are common, a description of national and international updated bibliographic reports with definitions connected with this topic was made to show the importance and seriousness of the problem for the safety of the health system, since their detection and action by various initiatives could reduce their occurrence. It is known that a lot of errors are trivial and that they do not damage the patient; however, they are an indicator of low quality health care and, therefore, a health problem.

Palavras-chave : Medication errors; medication accident; iatrogenic disease; adverse reaction to drugs; health quality.