Advanced Search

Journal Navigation

Journal Home

Subscriptions

Archive

Contact Us

Table of Contents

Click here to sign up for SAGE Journal Email Alerts today!

Sign In to gain access to subscriptions and/or personal tools.
Human Factors: The Journal of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society
This Article
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow References
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Right arrow Citation Map
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to Saved Citations
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Right arrow Request Reprints
Right arrow Add to My Marked Citations
Citing Articles
Right arrow Citing Articles via HighWire
Right arrow Citing Articles via Google Scholar
Right arrow Citing Articles via Scopus
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Filik, R.
Right arrow Articles by Gerrett, D.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
PubMed
Right arrow Articles by Filik, R.
Right arrow Articles by Gerrett, D.
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Complore   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us   Add to Digg   Add to Reddit   Add to Technorati   Add to Twitter  
What's this?

Labeling of Medicines and Patient Safety: Evaluating Methods of Reducing Drug Name Confusion

Ruth Filik

University of Glasgow, Glasgow, United Kingdom

Kevin Purdy

University of Derby, Derby, United Kingdom

Alastair Gale

University of Derby, Derby, United Kingdom

David Gerrett

University of Derby, Derby, United Kingdom

Objective: We report three experiments evaluating the proposal that highlighting sections of drug names using uppercase ("tall man") lettering and/or color may reduce the confusability of similar drug names. Background: Medication errors commonly involve drug names that look or sound alike. One potential method of reducing these errors is to highlight sections of names on labels in order to emphasize the differences between similar products. Method: In Experiments 1 and 2, participants were timed as they decided whether similar name pairs were the same name or two different names. Experiment 3 was a recognition memory task. Results: Results from Experiments 1 and 2 showed that highlighting sections of words using tall man lettering can make similar names easier to distinguish if participants are aware that this is the purpose of the intervention. Results from Experiment 3 suggested that tall man lettering and/or color does not make names less confusable in memory but that tall man letters may increase attention. Conclusion: These findings offer some support for the use of tall man letters in order to reduce errors caused by confusion between drug products with look-alike names. Application: The use of tall man letters could be applied in a variety of visual presentations of drug names - for example, by manufacturers on packaging, labeling, and computer software, and in pharmacies on shelf labels. Additionally, this paper demonstrates two meaningful behavioral measures that can be used during product design to objectively assess confusability of packaging and labeling.

Human Factors: The Journal of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society, Vol. 48, No. 1, 39-47 (2006)
DOI: 10.1518/001872006776412199
Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Complore Complore   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us   Add to Digg Digg   Add to Reddit Reddit   Add to Technorati Technorati   Add to Twitter Twitter    What's this?


This article has been cited by other articles:


Home page
 QJMHome page
J.K. Aronson
Medication errors: what they are, how they happen, and how to avoid them
QJM, August 1, 2009; 102(8): 513 - 521.
[Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]