“Beware not the ides but the start of March – and April and May and every month.”

So warns a press release announcing new research by the University of California, San Diego, concerning deaths attributed to prescription-drug mistakes.

According to the study by sociologist David Phillips, which was published in the January issue of the journal of the American College of Clinical Pharmacy, fatalities due to medication increased by as much as 25 percent in the first few days of the month.

Phillips studied prescription drug-related deaths from 1979 to 2000, discounting suicides and homicides. Almost 97 percent of 131,952 deaths were the result of medication errors, meaning the wrong drug was given or taken, or there was an accidental overdose.

“Government assistance payments to the old, the sick and the poor are typically received at the beginning of each month. Because of this, there is a beginning-of-the-month spike in purchases of prescription medicines,” Phillips says in a statement about the study. “Pharmacy workloads go up and – in line with both evidence and experience – error rates go up, as well. Our data suggest that the mortality spike occurs at least partly because of this phenomenon.”

More research needs to be conducted. But if the results of this study hold up, we need to rethink the way government payments are distributed and pharmacies should consider their staffing requirements during peak times. It might also make sense to offer incentives for customers to buy their medicine during slower times of the month – to avoid the rush and the mistakes that seem to follow an increased workload.