| ORIGINAL ARTICLE |
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| Year : 2022 | Volume
: 11
| Issue : 1 | Page : 55-61 |
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Medication reconciliation – Responsibilities and barriers facing physicians, pharmacists, and nurses in Saudi Arabia
Najah Saud Alanazi, Wafa A Alatawi, Kousalya Prabahar
Department of Pharmacy Practice, Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Tabuk, Tabuk, Saudi Arabia
Correspondence Address:
Najah Saud Alanazi
Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Tabuk, Tabuk 47914
Saudi Arabia
 Source of Support: None, Conflict of Interest: None  | Check |
DOI: 10.4103/sjhs.sjhs_82_21
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Background: Patient safety can be adversely affected by medication errors. The medication reconciliation process plays a critical role in the prevention of medication discrepancies and adverse drug events. Aims: This study aimed to investigate the perceptions of Saudi Arabian physicians, pharmacists, and nurses regarding their functions in the medication reconciliation process and to elucidate the barriers to implementing this process. Materials and Methods: A cross-sectional survey was performed for 4 months targeting pharmacists, physicians, and nurses who work at various hospitals in Saudi Arabia. An online survey was used to collect all data. Data gathered were statistically analyzed using SPSS24. Results: In all, 447 participants completed the survey. Physicians considered their profession to be the primary health-care providers responsible for every step of the medication reconciliation process. Pharmacists believed that their profession was the main one among health-care providers responsible for all steps in the process, apart from interviewing patients during admission and taking a correct medication history. They assigned those tasks to physicians by a margin of 53.3%. Nurses viewed themselves as responsible for more roles than physicians, except for two steps, in which they considered pharmacists to be the responsible person: reconciling medications while transferring a patient to the next level of care (54.1%) and sending the patient's discharge medication list to his or her next provider (56.5%). Conclusions: Participants revealed the insufficiency of a clear understanding of the functions of health-care providers in every step of the medication reconciliation process.
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