An evaluation of improperly completed laboratory request forms in a tertiary mono-specialist hospital in Kaduna, north-west Nigeria

Abstract

Background: Most laboratory errors occur in the early pre-analytical phase of the total testing process, part of which is the completion of laboratory request form (LRF). The challenges of improperly/inadequately completed or illegible data on the LRF could lead to negative patient’s outcome. However few studies have examined the frequency of improperly completed LRFs. This study is, therefore, designed to quantify the occurrence of improperly completed LRFs in Federal Neuropsychiatric Hospital (FNPH), Barnawa, Kaduna to serve as an initial step in an error reduction strategy.

Methodology: An audit of 518 paper based (manually completed) laboratory request forms received in FNPH laboratory in the month of January 2021, was retrospectively conducted to assess the level of completion of LRFs The data were extracted manually from the LRFs and entered into an Excel Sheet indicating adequately and correctly filled information, or otherwise for any item missing. The data was further categorized into groups of quality indicators (QI), based on International Federation of Clinical Chemistry-Working Group (IFCC-WG) guidelines, and results were expressed in percentages.

Results: Of the 518 laboratory request forms audited, 29.0% were improperly completed. The patient’s name and test required were the only variables with 100% filled data, and none of the forms was 100% adequately filled. Furthermore, error rates of 94.5%, 5.3%, 4.2%and 2.1%were recorded for patient’s clinical information, demography, clinicians’ information and appropriateness of the test requests, respectively.

Conclusion: This study reveals a high occurrence of inappropriately filled laboratory forms in the place of study. These could add to raise the laboratory errors in the hospital. There is the need to encourage clinicians to fill LRF appropriately.

Key Words: Improperly completed, LRFs, FNPH Barnawa Kaduna, North-West Nigeria