Decreasing Medication Errors by Caregivers Using a Health Literacy Intervention

NCT01294501 | Terminated

• 1 other identifier: AAAI0786
• Study Type: interventional
• Target: 132
• Locations: 1 country
• Sites: 1

Brief Summary

Giving medications to children can be confusing; studies have shown that caregivers make dosing administration errors up to 50% of the time. There are many reasons that there are so many errors, including the fact that dosing for children is based on their weight, liquid medications come in many different forms, and caregivers often give medicines using kitchen teaspoons and tablespoons. Caregivers who have difficulty reading have even more difficulty understanding medication instructions. We are developing and testing a web-based educational module to teach caregivers how to give medications. We are focusing on the pediatric emergency department because we know that this population has low literacy levels, and that many antibiotics are prescribed in this setting. We anticipate that those caregivers that view the interactive module will have increased knowledge on how to give medications once they get home.

Conditions

Medication Administration; Medication Errors

Keywords

Medication administration; Medication errors; Health Literacy; Pediatric Emergency Department; Web-based education

Outcome Measures

Primary Outcomes (1)

• Score on the telephone interview post-test

  Subject scores will be dichotomized in the follow way: anything less than 100% will be considered incorrect, a score of 100% will be considered correct.

  48-72 hours post Emergency Department visit

Secondary Outcomes (1)

• Prevalence of perfect performance on each element of the questionnaire

  48-72 hours post Emergency Department visit

Study Arms (1)

Fever assessment and management

EXPERIMENTAL

Medication administration educational module for low literacy subjects on how to administer common medications appropriately and safely.

Other: Medication administration educational module

Interventions

Medication administration educational module OTHER

The Research Assistant (RA) will enter the subject's language (English or Spanish), the type of medicine (tablet/capsule, liquid, or ointment) from the antibiotic prescription, and the frequency (once a day, twice a day, three times a day, four times a day) from the antibiotic prescription into the web-based educational module on medication administration so that a tailored module will be setup for the subject. The subject will then view the educational interactive module. After the subject is done with the module, the RA will administer a verbal post-test. The post-test will include questions on medication administration as well as questions on fever assessment and management.

Also known as: Health Literacy Intervention

Fever assessment and management

Eligibility Criteria

• Age: 2 Months - 8 Years
• Sex: all
• Healthy Volunteers: No
• Age Groups: Child (0-17)

You may qualify if:

• Caregivers of:
• Patients aged 2 months to 8 years
• Patients triaged to Emergency Severity Index (ESI) level 4 or 5 in the pediatric emergency department.
• Patients with at least one prescription for a liquid, tablet or ointment antibiotic.

You may not qualify if:

• Caregivers of:
• Patients in need of immediate care.
• Patients hospitalized.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• Columbia University: lead

Study Sites (1)

Columbia University Medical Center

New York, New York, 10032, United States

Location

Study Officials

• Anupama Subramony, MD, MBA

  Columbia University

  PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR

Study Design

• Study Type: interventional
• Phase: not applicable
• Allocation: NA
• Masking: SINGLE
• Who Masked: PARTICIPANT
• Purpose: HEALTH SERVICES RESEARCH
• Intervention Model: SINGLE GROUP
• Sponsor Type: OTHER
• Responsible Party: SPONSOR

Study Record Dates

• First Submitted: February 4, 2011
• First Posted: February 11, 2011
• Study Start: February 1, 2011
• Primary Completion: January 1, 2013
• Study Completion: January 1, 2013
• Last Updated: April 24, 2015

Record last verified: 2015-04

Locations

US (1)