Table 2

 Most commonly defined medication safety terms

Group and related termsTotal no of definitionsNo of different definitionsNo of different functional meanings*
*From scenario assignments; see table 3 for scenario assignments for “near miss” and related terms.
Adverse event3283
    “Adverse event”21
    “Adverse drug event”10
    “Adverse medication event”1
Error2392
    “Error”13
    “Medical error”3
    “Medication error”7
Near miss16123
    “Near miss”8
    “Potential adverse event”1
    “Potential adverse drug event”4
    “Potential error”3
Adverse reaction1482
    “Adverse reaction”3
    “Adverse drug reaction”11
Incident943
    “Incident”8
    “Medication incident”1