The study says that about 7 per cent of children being hospitalized in U.S. were getting wrong drugs, accidental overdoses and unfavorable reactions.
The growing concern over the wrong medications is now being highlighted by the headlines last November when actor Dennis Quaid newborn twins were accidentally given life-threatening overdose of blood thinner.
The researchers randomly selected 960 charts of children from 12 hospitals around United States. They trace medical errors from the list of 15 "triggers" that a patient's charts might indicate possible drug-related problems.
The study reveals that around 11.1 for every 100 children hospitalized were given adverse drugs, from which - 22 per cent were preventable, 17.8 percent could have been identified earlier while 16.8 percent could have been handled more effectively.
But the good news is they found out the most of these adverse drug events caused only minor and temporary harm.
Lead author Dr. Paul Sharek, medical director of quality management at Stanford University's Lucile Packard Children's Hospital says that steps are being taken to help reduce the number of medication errors involving children that also include electronic medical records and bar coding.
Dennis Quaid and his wife formed a foundation to prevent further medical errors. Quaid said that despite those adverse dugs given to their twins, they seemed to be normal healthy and happy kids.
Quaid added that until the near death of his twins, he didn't know that he would be a public health advocate.
His message to parents, "Every time a caregiver comes to the room, he would ask what medications would be given to their kids and why."
