Table 1.
Physicians, prescriptions, and work environment characteristics during the study period (2014–2017)
| Parameter | Value |
|---|---|
| Number of medications prescribed throughout the study period | 1 652 896 |
| Number of participating physicians | 1066 |
| Total number of individual physician shifts conducted throughout the study period | 264 958 |
| Morning shifts | 46% |
| Evening shifts | 32% |
| Night shifts | 22% |
| Shifts per physician (median [interquartile range]) | 139 [80; 316] |
| Prescriptions per physician per shift (median [interquartile range]) | 3 [1,7] |
| Follow up period per physician (years) (median [interquartile range]) | 1.6 [0.7; 2.7] |
| Drug types per physician (median [interquartile range]) | 78 [7; 152] |
| Prescription error rate | 0.23% |
| Error types (%) | |
| Lab result-dependent | 44.5 |
| Dosage outliers | 34 |
| Patient-drug incompatibility | 16.5 |
| Other | 5 |
| Shift conditions (% of prescriptions issued under the designated condition) | |
| Shift type | |
| Morning | 42 |
| Evening | 37 |
| Night | 21 |
| Work overload | |
| No high-workload shifts | 78 |
| High-workload shifts | 22 |
| Successive shifts performed | |
| One shift only or the first shift | 54 |
| 2 successive shifts | 32 |
| 3 successive shifts | 14 |
| Experience prescribing a specific medication | |
| Less than 6 orders | 21 |
| 6 or more orders | 79 |
| General work experience during the study period (%) | |
| 0–12 months | 42 |
| 12–24 months | 32 |
| 24–36 months | 20 |
| Over 36 months | 6 |