Deaths from medication mistakes at home have risen dramatically during the past two decades in the U.S.
The reasons likely include soaring home use of prescription painkillers and other potent drugs, which 25 years ago were given mainly inside hospitals.
The findings were based on nearly 50 million U.S. death certificates. Of those, more than 224,000 involved fatal medication errors, such as overdoses or mixing prescription drugs with alcohol or street drugs.
Deaths from medication mistakes at home increased from slightly over 1,000 deaths in 1983 to nearly 12,500 in 2004. Adjusted for population growth, that amounts to an increase of more than 700 percent.