Objectives: The number of predatory journals is increasing in the scholarly communication realm. These journals use questionable business practices, minimal or no peer review, or limited editorial oversight and, thus, publish articles below a minimally accepted standard of quality. These publications have the potential to alter the results of knowledge syntheses. The objective of this study was to determine the degree to which articles published by a major predatory publisher in the health and biomedical sciences are cited in systematic reviews.Methods: The authors downloaded citations of articles published by a known predatory publisher. Using forward reference searching in Google Scholar, we examined whether these publications were cited in systematic reviews.Results: The selected predatory publisher published 459 journals in the health and biomedical sciences. Sixty-two of these journal titles had published a total of 120 articles that were cited by at least 1 systematic review, with a total of 157 systematic reviews citing an article from 1 of these predatory journals.Discussion: Systematic review authors should be vigilant for predatory journals that can appear to be legitimate. To reduce the risk of including articles from predatory journals in knowledge syntheses, systematic reviewers should use a checklist to ensure a measure of quality control for included papers and be aware that Google Scholar and PubMed do not provide the same level of quality control as other bibliographic databases.

Background: Medication errors can cause substantial harm to patients and may lead to significant costs within a health care system. As such, there is value in identifying patient-related risk factors for medication errors. The objectives of this study were to identify patient-related risk factors associated with self-reported medication errors and to determine whether the risk factors differed between hospital and community settings. Methods: The Commonwealth Fund's 2008 International Health Policy Survey of chronically ill patients in 8 countries was the primary data source. Univariate analyses were used to determine significant explanatory variables ( p < 0.05) for inclusion in weighted logistic regression models. Two regression models were developed: one to identify overall patient-related risk factors and the other to determine whether these factors differed between hospital and community settings. Results: The final study population consisted of 9944 adults. Patient-related risk factors significantly associated with self-reported medication errors were the number of medications being taken, sex, age and country of residence. Approximately 4 out of every 5 self-reported medication errors occurred in the community setting. Conclusions: A substantial percentage of patients with chronic diseases in the countries covered by the survey experienced medication errors, with most errors occurring in the community setting. Several patient-related risk factors were associated with these errors. Greater emphasis on national incident reporting systems and greater sharing of knowledge across nations could help to identify strategies to overcome these problems. More specifically, strategies to increase reporting of and learning from medication errors, as well as education about potential patient-related risk factors, are recommended.

Medication use among Canadian seniors is widespread and increases with the number of comorbidities. Limited evidence exists on medication knowledge among seniors, especially in home care. The purpose of this retrospective cohort study was to describe medication knowledge and ability to take medication among seniors admitted to home care in Ontario. Ten percent had little or no knowledge of what medication to take (n = 1,389/14,004) or an understanding of the purpose of their medications (n = 1,396/14,004). Increasing numbers of medications prescribed was associated with decreased knowledge of medications. The strongest predictor of limited knowledge and ability to take medication was dementia (odds ratio > 5.0). Among Ontario seniors living at home, knowledge about medications decreases as the number of medications increases. Therefore, this group may be at high risk of medication errors. Better systems are required to allow healthcare professionals to review with patients, any medications with patients and caregivers, to assist in addressing the decreased knowledge of medications. Such a system would provide the capacity to target those individuals at high risk for a medication error, as well as the medications and drug–drug interactions that seem most likely to be harmful among older adults.

Data from three Canadian paediatric centres were collected, without identifiers, on actual or potential errors that occurred.